Related papers: The Ambiguity of Simplicity
The space P of pure states of any physical system, classical or quantum, is identified as a Poisson space with a transition probability. The latter is a function p: PxP -> [0,1]; in addition, a Poisson bracket is defined for functions on P.…
The twentieth century saw two fundamental revolutions in physics -- relativity and quantum. Daily use of these theories can numb the sense of wonder at their immense empirical success. Does their instrumental effectiveness stand on the rock…
The correspondence principle states that classical mechanics emerges from quantum mechanics in the appropriate limits. However, beyond this heuristic rule, an information-theoretic perspective reveals that classical mechanics is a…
This article is a short review on the concept of information. We show the strong relation between Information Theory and Physics, and the differences between classical and quantum information, with emphasis in their manipulation through…
The basic premise of Quantum Mechanics, embodied in the doctrine of wave-particle duality, assigns both, a particle and a wave structure to the physical entities. The classical laws describing the motion of a particle and the evolution of a…
Doubts are raised concerning the usual interpretation of the alleged failure, by quantum mechanics, of the distributive law of classical logic. The difficulty raised by incompatible sets of observables is overcome within an epistemic…
Quantum Darwinism explains the emergence of classical reality from the underlying quantum reality by the fact that a quantum system is observed indirectly, by looking at parts of its environment, so that only specific information about the…
Contextuality is a central property in comparative analysis of classical, quantum, and supercorrelated systems. We examine and compare two well-motivated approaches to contextuality. One approach ("contextuality-by-default") is based on the…
Most continuous mathematical formulations arising in science and engineering can only be solved numerically and therefore approximately. We shall always assume that we're dealing with a numerical approximation to the solution. There are two…
Inspired by the notion that physical systems can contain only a finite amount of information or complexity, we introduce a framework that allows for quantifying the amount of logical information needed to specify a function or set. We then…
I argue that scientific determinism is not supported by facts, but results from the elegance of the mathematical language physicists use, in particular from the so-called real numbers and their infinite series of digits. Classical physics…
Three problems stand in the way of deriving classical theories from quantum mechanics: those of realist interpretation, of classical properties and of quantum measurement. Recently, we have identified some tacit assumptions that lie at the…
Quantum cosmology is the quantum theory of the entire universe. Although strange at first sight, it is appropriate because (1) our world appears to be fundamentally quantum, (2) the classical description of gravity breaks down at…
What is light and how to describe it has always been a central subject in physics. As our understanding has increased, so have our theories changed: Geometrical optics, wave optics and quantum optics are increasingly sophisticated…
The frame of classical probability theory can be generalized by enlarging the usual family of random variables in order to encompass nondeterministic ones: this leads to a frame in which two kinds of correlations emerge: the classical…
A new realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is introduced. Quantum systems are shown to have two kinds of properties: the usual ones described by values of quantum observables, which are called extrinsic, and those that can be…
The view of nature we adopt in the natural attitude is determined by common sense, without which we could not survive. Classical physics is modelled on this common-sense view of nature, and uses mathematics to formalise our natural…
In our daily life experiences we face localized objects which are "here or there" not "here and there". The state of a cat could be "dead and alive" at the same time from a quantum mechanical point of view, which is not in agreement with…
Using semiclassical methods, it is possible to construct very accurate approximations in the short wavelength limit of quantum dynamics that rely exclusively on classical dynamical input. For systems whose classical realization is strongly…
We can recognize two modes in which 'quantum appears' in macro domains: (i) a 'micro-physical appearance', where quantum laws are assumed to be universal and they are transferred from the micro to the macro level if suitable 'quantum…