Related papers: Indistinguishability
Duality transformations within the quantum mechanics of a finite number of degrees of freedom can be regarded as the dependence of the notion of a quantum, i.e., an elementary excitation of the vacuum, on the observer on classical phase…
This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Section 2 presents the traditional…
The transition from quantum to classical statistics is studied in light of Huggett's finding that the empirical data do not support the usual claim that the distinction between classical and quantum objects consists in the capacity of…
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
Hidden-variable models aim to reproduce the results of quantum theory and to satisfy our classical intuition. Their refutation is usually based on deriving predictions that are different from those of quantum mechanics. Here instead we…
This work explores the connection between logical independence and the algebraic structure of quantum mechanics. Building on results by Brukner et al., it introduces the notion of \textit{onto-epistemic ignorance}: situations in which the…
On classical phase spaces admitting just one complex-differentiable structure, there is no indeterminacy in the choice of the creation operators that create quanta out of a given vacuum. In these cases the notion of a quantum is universal,…
A quantum fractal is a wavefunction with a real and an imaginary part continuous everywhere, but differentiable nowhere. This lack of differentiability has been used as an argument to deny the general validity of Bohmian mechanics (and…
** The primary topic of this dissertation is the study of the relationships between parts and wholes as described by particular physical theories, namely generalized probability theories in a quasi-classical physics framework and…
We investigate the structure common to causal theories that attempt to explain a (part of) the world. Causality implies conservation of identity, itself a far from simple notion. It imposes strong demands on the universalizing power of the…
In the context of a physical theory, two devices, A and B, described by the theory are called incompatible if the theory does not allow the existence of a third device C that would have both A and B as its components. Incompatibility is a…
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…
Quantum particles and classical particles are described in a common setting of classical statistical physics. The property of a particle being "classical" or "quantum" ceases to be a basic conceptual difference. The dynamics differs,…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
In this article, we discuss the identity and indistinguishability of quantum systems and the consequent need to introduce an extra postulate in Quantum Mechanics to correctly describe situations involving indistinguishable particles. This…
Two particles are identical if all their intrinsic properties, such as spin and charge, are the same, meaning that no quantum experiment can distinguish them. In addition to the well known principles of quantum mechanics, understanding…
For systems consisting of distinguishable particles, there exists an agreed upon notion of entanglement which is fundamentally based on the possibility of addressing individually each one of the constituent parties. Instead, the…
Wave-particle duality, a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, encapsulates the complementary relationship between the wave and particle behaviors of quantum systems. In this paper, we treat quantum coherence and classical…
Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by being based on two…
Entanglement is often regarded as an inherently quantum feature. We show that this does not have to be the case: under restricted operational access, classical correlations can appear nonseparable when expressed in the formalism of quantum…