Related papers: Understanding the Frauchiger-Renner Argument
Quantum Mechanics (QM) has faced deep controversies and debates since its origin when Werner Heisenberg proposed the first mathematical formalism capable to operationally account for what had been recently discovered as the new field of…
Quantum theory is formulated as the only consistent way to manipulate probability amplitudes. The crucial ingredient is a consistency constraint: if there are two different ways to compute an amplitude the two answers must agree. This…
Aberg has claimed in a recent Letter," Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 150402 (2014)", that the coherence of a reservoir can be used repeatedly to perform coherent operations without ever diminishing in power to do so. The claim has particular…
We critically revisit Einstein's 1905 heuristic argument for lightquanta, considering its internal coherence and the scope of its applicability. We argue that Einstein's reasoning, often celebrated for its originality, is ambiguous because…
We point out how some mathematically incorrect passages in the paper of M. Reuter can be formulated in a rigorous way. The fibre bundle approach to quantum mechanics developed in quant-ph/9803083, quant-ph/9803084, quant-ph/9804062,…
Fuchs and Peres (2000) claimed that standard Quantum Mechanics needs no interpretation. In this essay, I show the flaws of the arguments presented in support to this thesis. Specifically, it will be claimed that the authors conflate QM with…
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 decoherence interpretation of quantum measurements is applied to Wigner's friend experiments. A framework in which all the experimental outcomes arise from unitary evolutions is proposed. Within it, a measurement is not completed until…
The relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (RQM) has received a growing interest since its first formulation in 1996. Usually presented as an interpretational layer over the usual quantum mechanics formalism, it appears as a…
It is argued that the traditional "realist" methodology of physics, according to which human concepts, laws and theories can grasp the essence of reality, is incompatible with the most fruitful interpretation of quantum formalism. The proof…
This is a 1-page comment on a wrong paper that recently appeared in PRL (Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (23), 5393 (2001), also quant-ph/0101004). The authors claim to have shown that using a quantum computer gives an "exponential advantage" for…
Kastner's (Philosophy of Science 70, 2003, pp. 145--163) recent objections to the counterfactual usage of the time-symmetric Aharonov-Bergmann-Lebowitz rule by the author, especially her claims that the resulting time-symmetric quantum…
Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…
Interpretations of key concepts, such as uncertainty relations, kinetic energy, value of an observable, probability distributions, the projection or collapse of a wave function postulate, and discrete versus continuous values, that appear…
The role of complex quantities in quantum theory has been puzzling physicists since the beginnings. It is thus natural to ask whether, in order to describe our experiments, the mathematical structure of complex Hilbert spaces it is built on…
Quantum theory encounters a difficulty when attempting to describe recording devices. If the recording is of events in which quantum uncertainty plays a role, such as an experiment on a quantum system, quantum theory is unable to correctly…
Crull (2014) claims that by invoking decoherence it is possible (i) to obviate many ``fine grained'' issues often conflated under the common designation of measurement problem, and (ii) to make substantial progresses in the fields of…
This version corrects an inportant typographical error in Eq. 17. COMMENTS, FOR THE RECORD: A referees reoprt from Phys. Rev. Lett. read in part ``The first named author has appreciated my exceptionally long report. He has read and well…
The quantum capacity of a quantum channel is always smaller than the capacity of the channel for private communication. However, both quantities are given by the infinite regularization of respectively the coherent and the private…
Both at formal and philosophical levels, decades of efforts have been devoted to a deciphering of the `quantum enigma', the `crazy way quantum objects behave', to quote R.P. Feynman's words. We posit that the enigma cannot recede without…