Related papers: Clocks And Dynamics In Quantum Mechanics
The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? We address…
Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence…
Advances in our understanding of the physical universe have impacted dramatically on how we view ourselves. Right at the core of all modern thinking about the universe is the assumption that dynamics is an elemental feature that exists…
We develop a new formalism for constructing probabilities associated to the causal ordering of events in quantum theory, where by an event we mean the emergence of a measurement record on a detector. We start with constructing probabilities…
In quantum gravity there is no notion of absolute time. Like all other quantities in the theory, the notion of time has to be introduced "relationally", by studying the behavior of some physical quantities in terms of others chosen as a…
The fundamental dynamics of quantum particles is neutral with respect to the arrow of time. And yet, our experiments are not: we observe quantum systems evolving from the past to the future, but not the other way round. A fundamental…
Classical, Quantum and Relativistic mechanics elect time and space as fundamentals, extracting the measure of motion -velocity- from this static space-time platform. Conversely, the timelessness of Statistical mechanics computes the…
The role of time in quantum mechanics is discussed. The differences between ordinary observables and an observable which corresponds to the time of an event is examined. In particular, the time-of-arrival of a particle to a fixed location…
Quantum mechanics predicts correlation between spacelike separated events which is widely argued to violate the principle of Local Causality. By contrast, here we shall show that the Schr\"odinger equation with Born's statistical…
Time is a parameter playing a central role in our most fundamental modeling of natural laws. Relativity theory shows that the comparison of times measured by different clocks depends on their relative motions and on the strength of the…
In this work we attempt to confront the orthodox widespread claim present in the foundational literature of Quantum Mechanics (QM) according to which 'superpositions are never actually observed in the lab'. In order to do so, we begin by…
We reformulate the problem of the "interpretation of quantum mechanics" as the problem of DERIVING the quantum mechanical formalism from a set of simple physical postulates. We suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as…
Textbook quantum mechanics treats time as a classical parameter, and not as a quantum observable with an associated Hermitian operator. For this reason, to make sense of usual time-energy uncertainty relations such as $\Delta {t}\Delta…
Time plays a crucial role in the intuitive understanding of the world around us. Within quantum mechanics, however, time is not usually treated as an observable quantity; it enters merely as a parameter in the laws of motion of physical…
A general definition of a clock is proposed, and the role of clocks in establishing temporal pre-conditions in quantum mechanical questions is critically discussed. The different status of clocks as used by theorists external to a system…
As physics searches for invariants in observations, this paper looks for invariants of probabilistic observation without assuming physical structure. Structure emerges from the basic assumption of science that new information shall lead to…
Quantum mechanics is derived as an application of the method of maximum entropy. No appeal is made to any underlying classical action principle whether deterministic or stochastic. Instead, the basic assumption is that in addition to the…
We discuss a systematic way in which a relational dynamics can be established relative to periodic clocks both in the classical and quantum theories, emphasising the parallels between them. We show that: (1) classical and quantum relational…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
The relationship between chaos and quantum mechanics has been somewhat uneasy -- even stormy, in the minds of some people. However, much of the confusion may stem from inappropriate comparisons using formal analyses. In contrast, our…