Related papers: Determinism, independence and objectivity are inco…
Students encounter harmonic-oscillator models in many aspects of basic physics, within widely-varying theoretical contexts. Here we highlight the interconnections and varying points of view. We start with the classical mechanics of masses…
A basic assumption behind the inequalities used for testing noncontextual hidden variable models is that the observables measured on the same individual system are perfectly compatible. However, compatibility is not perfect in actual…
This paper argues that the traditional opposition between determinism and indeterminism in physics is representational rather than ontological. Deterministic-stochastic dualities are available in principle, and arise in a non-contrived way…
The question about the existence of so-called ``hidden'' variables in quantum mechanics and the perception of the completeness of quantum mechanics are two sides of the same coin. Quantum analytical mechanics constitutes a completion of…
We study the concepts of compatibility and separability and their implications for quantum and classical systems. These concepts are illustrated on a macroscopic model for the singlet state of a quantum system of two entangled spin 1/2 with…
The question of whether quantum phenomena can be explained by classical models with hidden variables is the subject of a long lasting debate. In 1964, Bell showed that certain types of classical models cannot explain the quantum mechanical…
What does it take for real-deterministic c-valued (i.e., classical, commuting) variables to comply with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? Here, we construct a class of real-deterministic c-valued variables out of the weak values…
Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, a well known manifestation of the complementarity principle, has proved somewhat difficult to physically interpret. We show that, restated in quantum field theoretic language, the experiment submits to a…
We show a hitherto unexplored consequence of the property of identicity in quantum mechanics. If two identical objects, distinguished by a dynamical variable A, are in certain entangled states of another dynamical variable B, then, for such…
A number of phenomena generally believed characteristic of quantum mechanics and seen as interpretively problematic--the incompatibility and value-indeterminacy of variables, the non-existence of dispersion-free states, the failure of the…
The disjunction effect in human decision making is often taken to show that the classical law of total probability is violated, motivating quantum-like models. We re-examine this claim for the Prisoner's Dilemma disjunction effect. Under…
Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical…
The interface between classical physics and quantum physics is explained from the point of view of quantum information theory (Feynman Processes). The interpretation depends on a hefty sacrifice: the classical determinism or the arrow of…
Recently, it has been argued that quantum mechanics is a complete theory, and that different quantum states do necessarily correspond to different elements of reality, under the assumptions that quantum mechanics is correct and that…
With a view to quantum foundations, we define the concepts of an empirical model (a probabilistic model describing measurements and outcomes), a hidden-variable model (an empirical model augmented by unobserved variables), and various…
The main distinction between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics is the lack in the latter of a full mechanical determinism: different final states can arise from the same physical state, after the measurement. No hidden variable is…
We discuss how to embed quantum nonlocality in an approximately classical spacetime background, a question which must be answered irrespective of any underlying microscopic theory of spacetime. We argue that, in deterministic…
Our preferences depend on the circumstances in which we reveal them. We will introduce a dependency which allows us to illustrate the relation between the possibility of winning of particular candidates in a quantum election and the type of…
Experiments violating Bell's inequality appear to indicate deterministic models do not correspond to a realistic theory of quantum mechanics. The theory of pilot waves seemingly overcomes this hurdle via nonlocality and statistical…
Quantum-to-classical transition is a fundamental open question in physics frontier. Quantum decoherence theory points out that the inevitable interaction with environment is a sink carrying away quantum coherence, which is responsible for…