Related papers: Symmetry as a foundational concept in Quantum Mech…
We consider symmetries and reduction in non-relativistic many-body quantum mechanics, with the aim of identifying physically meaningful observables in systems such as molecules and crystalline solids. To this end, we propose a unified…
This philosophical dialogue explores the idea that the foundational principles of quantum mechanics need not be interpreted as describing a new physics, but may instead arise from the logical necessity of formalising the act of measurement…
Symmetry, a central concept in understanding the laws of nature, has been used for centuries in physics, mathematics, and chemistry, to help make mathematical models tractable. Yet, despite its power, symmetry has not been used extensively…
In contemporary theoretical physics, the powerful notion of symmetry stands for a web of intricate meanings among which I identify four clusters associated with the notion of transformation, comprehension, invariance and projection. While…
It is argued that there is no evidence for causality as a metaphysical relation in quantum phenomena. The assumption that there are no causal laws, but only probabilities for physical processes constrained by symmetries, leads naturally to…
Symmetry, irreversibility, and quantum coherence are foundational concepts in physics. Here, we present a universal tradeoff relation between these three concepts. This particularly reveals that (1) under a global symmetry, any attempt to…
Statistical classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are developed and well-known theories that represent a basis for modern physics. The two described theories are well known and have been well studied. As these theories contain numerous…
The physical models of a successful unified theory about the Universe must operate in different phase of matter evolution and different fields of physics. The attempts to build such wide range theory as a bunch of theories developed for…
I discuss a set of strong, but probabilistically intelligible, axioms from which one can {\em almost} derive the appratus of finite dimensional quantum theory. Stated informally, these require that systems appear completely classical as…
Quantum computation teaches us that quantum mechanics exhibits exponential complexity. We argue that the standard scientific paradigm of "predict and verify" cannot be applied to testing quantum mechanics in this limit of high complexity.…
A motivation is given for expressing classical mechanics in terms of diagonal projection matrices and diagonal density matrices. Then quantum mechanics is seen to be a simple generalization in which one replaces the diagonal real matrices…
The role of measurement in quantum computation is examined in the light of John Bell's critique of the how the term ``measurement'' is used in quantum mechanics. I argue that within the field of quantum computer science the concept of…
States of a quantum mechanical system are represented by rays in a complex Hilbert space. The space of rays has, naturally, the structure of a K\"ahler manifold. This leads to a geometrical formulation of the postulates of quantum mechanics…
The status of locality in quantum mechanics is analyzed from a nonstandard point of view. It is assumed that quantum states are relative, they depend on and are defined with respect to some bigger physical system which contains the former…
As it is well known, classical mechanics consists of several basic features like determinism, reductionism, completeness of knowledge and mechanicism. In this article the basic assumptions are discussed which underlie those features. It is…
Quantum mechanics has many counter-intuitive consequences which contradict our intuition which is based on classical physics. Here we discuss a special aspect of quantum mechanics, namely the possibility of entanglement between two or more…
We first recall a fact which is well-known among mathematical physicists although lesser-known among theoretical physicists that the standard quantum mechanics over a complex Hilbert space, is a Hamiltonian mechanics, regarding the Hilbert…
The standard model of the quantum theory of measurement is based on an interaction Hamiltonian in which the observable-to-be-measured is multiplied with some observable of a probe system. This simple Ansatz has proved extremely fruitful in…
A systematic analysis is made of the relations between the symmetries of a classical field and the symmetries of the one-particle quantum system that results from quantizing that field in regimes where interactions are weak. The results are…
The distinction between pure states and mixed states is a kernel ingredient of what is considered to be the standard formulation of quantum mechanics and plays today a kernel role in foundational debates about the meaning of quantum…