Related papers: Quantum theory as a principle theory: insights fro…
The rather unintuitive nature of quantum theory has led numerous people to develop sets of (physically motivated) principles that can be used to derive quantum mechanics from the ground up, in order to better understand where the structure…
After more than a century since its birth, Quantum Theory still eludes our understanding. If asked to describe it, we have to resort to abstract and ad hoc principles about complex Hilbert spaces. How is it possible that a fundamental…
Quantum theory was discovered in an adventurous way, under the urge to solve puzzles-like the spectrum of the blackbody radiation-that haunted the physics community at the beginning of the 20th century. It soon became clear, though, that…
Quantum information theory represents a rich subject of discussion for those interested in the philosphical and foundational issues surrounding quantum mechanics for a simple reason: one can cast its central concerns in terms of a…
In his recent book Bananaworld. Quantum mechanics for primates, Jeff Bub revives and provides a mature version of his influential information theoretic interpretation of Quantum Theory (QT). In this paper, I test Bub s conjecture that QT…
This paper is a commentary on the foundational significance of the Clifton-Bub-Halvorson theorem characterizing quantum theory in terms of three information-theoretic constraints (Foundations of Physics 33, 1561-1591 (2003);…
Quantum theory can be derived from purely informational principles. Five elementary axioms-causality, perfect distinguishability, ideal compression, local distinguishability, and pure conditioning-define a broad class of theories of…
A remarkable theorem by Clifton, Bub and Halvorson (2003)(CBH) characterizes quantum theory in terms of information--theoretic principles. According to Bub (2004, 2005) the philosophical significance of the theorem is that quantum theory…
I review some recent advances in foundational research at Pavia QUIT group. The general idea is that there is only Quantum Theory without quantization rules, and the whole Physics---including space-time and relativity--is emergent from the…
Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…
Why are the laws of physics formulated in terms of complex Hilbert spaces? Are there natural and consistent modifications of quantum theory that could be tested experimentally? This book chapter gives a self-contained and accessible summary…
Quantum theory makes the most accurate empirical predictions and yet it lacks simple, comprehensible physical principles from which the theory can be uniquely derived. A broad class of probabilistic theories exist which all share some…
The purpose of this paper is to formalize the concept that best synthesizes our intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics -- that the information carried by a system is limited -- and, from this principle, to construct the foundations of…
We reconstruct the explicit formalism of qubit quantum theory from elementary rules on an observer's information acquisition. Our approach is purely operational: we consider an observer O interrogating a system S with binary questions and…
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 having it follow from…
What belongs to quantum theory is no more than what is needed for its derivation. We argue for an approach focusing on reconstruction rather than interpretation of quantum mechanics and analyze several examples of reconstruction. We submit…
Quantum computers take advantage of interfering quantum alternatives in order to handle problems that might be too time consuming with algorithms based on classical logic. Developing quantum computers requires new ways of thinking beyond…
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…
The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which Axiomatic Reconstructions of Quantum Theory in terms of Information-Theoretic principles (ARQITs) can contribute to explaining and understanding quantum phenomena, as well as to study…
We summarise a recent reconstruction of the quantum theory of qubits from rules constraining an observer's acquisition of information about physical systems. This review of [arXiv:1412.8323, arXiv:1511.01130] is accessible and fairly…