Related papers: No alternative to proliferation
The apparent impossibility of extending non-relativistic quantum mechanics to a relativistic quantum theory is shown to be due to the insufficient structural richness of the field of complex numbers over which quantum mechanics is built. A…
An understanding of quantum theory in terms of new, underlying descriptions capable of explaining the existence of non-classical correlations, non-commutativity of measurements and other unique and counter-intuitive phenomena remains still…
It was argued [1] that there can be no extension of quantum mechanics with improved predictive power on a measurement freely chosen, independently of any event that is not in its future light cone. The assumption of measurement choice was…
While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with conceptual…
Finetuning and Naturalness are extra-empirical theory assessments that reflect our expectation how scientific theories should provide an intuitive understanding about the foundations underlying the observed phenomena. Recently, the absence…
This note presents two ideas. The first one is that quantum theory has a fundamentally perturbative basis but leads to nonperturbative states which it would seem natural to take into account in the foundation of a theory of quantum…
Contrary to claims about the irrelevance of philosophy for science, I argue that philosophy has had, and still has, far more influence on physics than is commonly assumed. I maintain that the current anti-philosophical ideology has had…
Quantum gravity is understood as a theory that, in some sense, unifies general relativity (GR) and quantum theory, and is supposed to replace GR at extremely small distances (high-energies). It may be that quantum gravity represents the…
The extreme smallness of both the Planck length, on the one side, and the ratio of the gravitational to the electrical forces between, say, two electrons, on the other side has led to a widespread belief that the realm of quantum gravity is…
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…
In a recent paper [1], it was introduced a new class of gravitational theories with two local degrees of freedom. The existence of these theories apparently challenges the distinctive role of general relativity as the unique non-linear…
In quantum field theory there is now a well developed technique, effective field theory, which allows one to obtain low energy quantum predictions in ``non-renormalizable'' theories, using only the degrees of freedom and interactions…
The search for a consistent and empirically established quantum theory of gravity is among the biggest open problems of fundamental physics. The obstacles are of formal and of conceptual nature. Here, I address the main conceptual problems,…
Modifications of General Relativity usually include extra dynamical degrees of freedom, which to date remain undetected. Here we explore the possibility of modifying Einstein's theory by adding solely nondynamical fields. With the minimal…
General relativity successfully describes space-times at scales that we can observe and probe today, but it cannot be complete as a consequence of singularity theorems. For a long time there have been indications that quantum gravity will…
Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes…
Algorithmic approach is based on the assumption that any quantum evolution of many particle system can be simulated on a classical computer with the polynomial time and memory cost. Algorithms play the central role here but not the…
A discursive, non-technical, analysis is made of some of the basic issues that arise in almost any approach to quantum gravity, and of how these issues stand in relation to recent developments in the field. Specific topics include the…
In this essay, I argue that modern science is not the dichotomous pairing of theory and experiment that it is typically presented as, and I offer an alternative paradigm defined by its functions as a human endeavor. I also demonstrate how…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…