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Related papers: Quantum Mechanics and Common Sense

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This essay reviews a modern understanding of a quantum measurement. Rather than reducing the picture to the observer's experience with quantum system, we try to put it in the context of a broader physical picture. We also attempt to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-10-21 Marcin Wieśniak

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-05-21 Alessio Benavoli , Alessandro Facchini , Marco Zaffalon

This article surveys key conceptual and interpretational developments in quantum mechanics, tracing the theory from its foundational postulates to contemporary discussions of measurement, nonlocality, and the emergence of classicality.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-11 Theodore McKeever , Ahsan Nazir

The ontology proposed in this paper is aimed at demonstrating that it is possible to understand the counter-intuitive predictions of quantum mechanics while still retaining much of the framework underlying classical physics, the implication…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-20 Roderick Sutherland

This review, of the understanding of quantum mechanics, is broad in scope, and aims to reflect enough of the literature to be representative of the current state of the subject. To enhance clarity, the main findings are presented in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-01-13 Brian Drummond

The author's opinion on the interpretation of quantum mechanics is further elucidated. Not only may quantum mechanics be a description of the sub-microscopic world that is profoundly different from what is often asserted, particularly…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-04-08 Gerard 't Hooft

It is argued that the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, and the philosophical problem of consciousness, both have their roots in the same set of misguided Cartesian assumptions. The confusions underlying those assumptions are…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2025-04-07 D. M. Appleby

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-04-17 N. David Mermin

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (MWI) states that the world we live in is just one among many parallel worlds. It is widely believed that because of this commitment to parallel worlds, the MWI violates common sense. Some…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-02-04 Kelvin J. McQueen , Lev Vaidman

Contemporary scientific perspectivism is re-evaluated and extended to a comprehensive perspectivist methodology and 'mediated' realistic epistemology, especially, with reference to quantum mechanics. In the present study, this is realized…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-06-26 Vassilios Karakostas , Elias Zafiris

Usual quantum mechanics requires a fixed, background, spacetime geometry and its associated causal structure. A generalization of the usual theory may therefore be needed at the Planck scale for quantum theories of gravity in which…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2013-12-05 James B. Hartle

A pedagogical introduction is given to the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally the universe as a whole. Quantum mechanics aims at predicting the probabilities of alternative coarse-grained time histories of a closed system.…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2014-01-15 James B. Hartle

A formulation of quantum mechanics, which begins by postulating assertions for individual physical systems, is given. The statistical predictions of quantum mechanics for infinite ensembles are then derived from its assertions for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-07-08 J. B. Hartle

Quantum Mechanics, the physical theory describing the microworld, represents one of science's greatest triumphs. It lies at the root of all modern digital technologies and offers unparalleled correspondence between prediction and…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2016-04-25 Adam Frank

Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2011-12-01 Giorgio Torrieri

The paper reviews and discusses four ideas scattered in previous papers of the author. First, objective properties of quantum systems are not associated with observables but are defined by preparations. Second, measurable results of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-07-29 Petr Hajicek

A hypothetical formulation of quantum mechanics is presented so as to reconcile it with macro-realism. On the analogy drawn from thermodynamics, an objective description of wave packet reduction is postulated, in which a characteristic…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Takuya Okabe

The interpretation of quantum mechanics has been a problem since its founding days. A large contribution to the discussion of possible interpretations of quantum mechanics is given by the so-called impossibility proofs for hidden variable…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-02-09 Ronnie Hermens

Physical superpositions exist both in classical and in quantum physics. However, what is exactly meant by 'superposition' in each case is extremely different. In this paper we discuss some of the multiple interpretations which exist in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-16 Newton da Costa , Christian de Ronde

For a century, quantum theorists have been reading the mathematical entrails of quantum mechanics (QM) to divine the nature of quantum reality. But to little avail. In this paper a different approach is taken, namely to identify and explain…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-11-11 David Ellerman