Related papers: Quantum mechanics from an epistemic state space
Quantum theory's irreducible empirical core is a probability calculus. While it presupposes the events to which (and on the basis of which) it serves to assign probabilities, and therefore cannot account for their occurrence, it has to be…
A scheme for constructing quantum mechanics is given that does not have Hilbert space and linear operators as its basic elements. Instead, a version of algebraic approach is considered. Elements of a noncommutative algebra (observables) and…
The geometric form of standard quantum mechanics is compatible with the two postulates: 1) The laws of physics are invariant under the choice of experimental setup and 2) Every quantum observation or event is intrinsically statistical.…
Any two infinite-dimensional (separable) Hilbert spaces are unitarily isomorphic. The sets of all their self-adjoint operators are also therefore unitarily equivalent. Thus if all self-adjoint operators can be observed, and if there is no…
Quantum mechanics is an extremely successful theory of nature and yet it lacks an intuitive axiomatization. In contrast, the special theory of relativity is well understood and is rooted into natural or experimentally justified postulates.…
We describe a system of axioms that, on one hand, is sufficient for constructing the standard mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics and, on the other hand, is necessary from the phenomenological standpoint. In the proposed scheme, the…
I show that probabilities in quantum mechanics are a measure of belief in the presence of human ignorance, just like all other probabilities. The Born interpretation of the square of modulus of the wave function arises from the interaction…
Consider a statistical model with an epistemic restriction such that, unlike in classical mechanics, the allowed distribution of positions is fundamentally restricted by the form of an underlying momentum field. Assume an agent (observer)…
Quantum mechanics notoriously faces the measurement problem, the problem that if read thoroughly, it implies the nonexistence of definite outcomes in measurement procedures. A plausible reaction to this and to related problems is to regard…
In this paper, we extend the standard formalism of quantum mechanics to a quantum theory for a total system including one internal measuring apparatus. The internality of the measuring apparatus implies that different decomposition of a…
The conceptual setting of quantum mechanics is subject to an ongoing debate from its beginnings until now. The consequences of the apparent differences between quantum statistics and classical statistics range from the philosophical…
The Copenhagen Interpretation describes individual systems, using the same Hilbert space formalism as does the statistical ensemble interpretation (SQM). This leads to the well-known paradoxes surrounding the Measurement Problem. We extend…
A system of quantum reasoning for a closed system is developed by treating non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a stochastic theory. The sample space corresponds to a decomposition, as a sum of orthogonal projectors, of the identity…
Despite the fact that it has been known since the time of Heisenberg that quantum operators obey a quantum version of Newton's laws, students are often told that derivations of quantum mechanics must necessarily follow from the Hamiltonian…
In classical physics, probabilistic or statistical knowledge has been always related to ignorance or inaccurate subjective knowledge about an actual state of affairs. This idea has been extended to quantum mechanics through a completely…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
It is possible to completely explain all aspects of quantum mechanics by expressing the relations between physical properties in terms of complex conditional probabilities (Phys. Rev. A 89, 042115(2014)). These fully deterministic…
$\Psi$-epistemic models of quantum mechanics imply that the quantum state does not correspond to physical reality, but instead reflects the observer's knowledge of the underlying quantum system. The epistemic view of the quantum state has…
As physics searches for invariants in observations, this paper looks for invariants of probabilistic observation without assuming physical structure. Structure emerges from the basic assumption of science that new information shall lead to…
It is widely accepted that the states of any quantum system are vectors in a Hilbert space. Not everyone agrees, however. The recent paper ``The unphysicality of Hilbert spaces'' by Carcassi, Calder\'on and Aidala is a thoughtful dissection…