Related papers: Constructor Theory
The program of a physical concept of information is outlined in the framework of quantum theory. A proposal is made for how to avoid the introduction of axiomatic observables. The conventional (collapse) and the Everett interpretations of…
This article aims to explain essential elements of perturbation theory and their conceptual underpinnings. It is not meant as a summary of popular perturbation methods, though some illustrative examples are given to underline the main…
The tremendous popular success of Chaos Theory shares some common points with the not less fortunate Relativity: they both rely on a misunderstanding. Indeed, ironically , the scientific meaning of these terms for mathematicians and…
"Physical theories of fundamental significance tend to be gauge theories. These are theories in which the physical system being dealt with is described by more variables than there are physically independent degree of freedom. The…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
After more than a century since its birth, Quantum Theory still eludes our understanding. If asked to describe it, we have to resort to abstract and ad hoc principles about complex Hilbert spaces. How is it possible that a fundamental…
The reader surely knows what particles physics is about: finding building blocks of nature that appear elementary at a given time and study their interactions - so why in the world this essay? The problem is how to arrive at a fundamental…
According to quantum theory, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe yet classical physics is mostly deterministic. In this article I show that it is possible for deterministic systems to arise from random ones and discuss the…
A non-statistical theory of continuous, but irreversible, evolution can be constructed in terms of the Cartan calculus. The fundamental postulate, for an evolutionary theory which admits irreversible processes, is that the topology of the…
The predictions that quantum theory makes about the outcomes of measurements are generally probabilistic. This has raised the question whether quantum theory can be considered complete, or whether there could exist alternative theories that…
A description of physical reality in which wholeness is the foundation is discussed along with the motivation for such an attempt. As a possible mathematical framework within which a physical theory based on wholeness may be expressed,…
I propose a new and direct connection between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics where I derive the quantum mechanical propagator from a variational principle. This variational principle is Hamilton's modified principle generalized…
We develop a representation theory of categories as a means to explore characteristic structures in algebra. Characteristic structures play a critical role in isomorphism testing of groups and algebras, and their construction and…
The apparent impossibility of extending non-relativistic quantum mechanics to a relativistic quantum theory is shown to be due to the insufficient structural richness of the field of complex numbers over which quantum mechanics is built. A…
It is generally believed that physical laws, reflecting an inherent order in the universe, are ordained by nature. However, in modern physics the observer plays a central role raising questions about how an observer-centric physics can…
Despite its apparent simplicity, Newtonian Mechanics contains conceptual subtleties that may cause some confusion to the deep-thinking student. These subtleties concern fundamental issues such as, e.g., the number of independent laws needed…
I distinguish two senses in which one can take a given physical theory to be `complete'. On the first, a complete physical theory is one that, in principle, completely describes physical reality. On the second, a complete physical theory is…
This thesis investigates the connection between quantum theory, thermodynamics and information theory. Theories with structure similar to that of quantum theory are considered, mathematically described by the framework of "Generalized…
Composite theories are the algebraic equivalent of distributive laws. In this paper, we delve into the details of this correspondence and concretely show how to construct a composite theory from a distributive law and vice versa. Using term…