Related papers: Compatible Quantum Theory
While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with conceptual…
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand the…
A physical theory is proposed that obeys both the principles of special relativity and of quantum mechanics. As a key feature, the laws are formulated in terms of quantum events rather than of particle states. Temporal and spatial…
A system of quantum reasoning for a closed system is developed by treating non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a stochastic theory. The sample space corresponds to a decomposition, as a sum of orthogonal projectors, of the identity…
The familiar theories of physics have the feature that the application of the theory to make predictions in specific circumstances can be done by means of an algorithm. We propose a more precise formulation of this feature --- one based on…
The machinery of quantum mechanics is fully capable of describing a single realistic world. Here we discuss the converse: in spite of appearances, and indeed numerous claims to the contrary, any quantum mechanical model can be mimicked, up…
In a previous preprint (quant-ph/0012122) we introduced a ``contextual objectivity" formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). A central feature of this approach is to define the quantum state in physical rather than in mathematical terms, in…
We investigate the class of physical theories with the same local structure as quantum theory, but a potentially different global structure. It has previously been shown that any bipartite correlations generated by such a theory must be…
The rather unintuitive nature of quantum theory has led numerous people to develop sets of (physically motivated) principles that can be used to derive quantum mechanics from the ground up, in order to better understand where the structure…
According to mathematical constructivism, a mathematical object can exist only if there is a way to compute (or "construct") it; so, what is non-computable is non-constructive. In the example of the quantum model, whose Fock states are…
We present a general formalism with the aim of describing the situation of an entity, how it is, how it reacts to experiments, how we can make statistics with it, and how it changes under the influence of the rest of the universe. Therefore…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…
We begin by surveying the historical positions in different attempts to understand the material world since the rise of modern science, with specific focus on the role of Cartesian primary qualities in explanatory conceptualisation.…
We present a formulation of the decoherent (or consistent) histories quantum theory of closed systems starting with records of what histories happen. Alternative routes to a formulation of quantum theory like this one can be useful both for…
The relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (RQM) has received a growing interest since its first formulation in 1996. Usually presented as an interpretational layer over the usual quantum mechanics formalism, it appears as a…
Quantum mechanics is among the most important and successful mathematical model for describing our physical reality. The traditional formulation of quantum mechanics is linear and algebraic. In contrast classical mechanics is a geometrical…
The relational interpretation (or RQM, for Relational Quantum Mechanics) solves the measurement problem by considering an ontology of sparse relative events, or "facts". Facts are realized in interactions between any two physical systems…
Many insights into the quantum world can be found by studying it from amongst more general operational theories of physics. In this thesis, we develop an approach to the study of such theories purely in terms of the behaviour of their…
We present a simple categorical framework for the treatment of probabilistic theories, with the aim of reconciling the fields of Categorical Quantum Mechanics (CQM) and Operational Probabilistic Theories (OPTs). In recent years, both CQM…