Related papers: Quantum Mechanics: Statistical Balance Prompts Cau…
The measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical system, and then ask that the standard rules…
Statistical mechanics is one of the most comprehensive theories in physics. From a boiling pot of water to the complex dynamics of quantum many-body systems it provides a successful connection between the microscopic dynamics of atoms and…
A central result in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the Kochen-Specker theorem. In short, it states that quantum mechanics is in conflict with classical models in which the result of a measurement does not depend on which other…
We provide an overview of a canonical formalism that describes mixed quantum-classical systems in terms of statistical ensembles on configuration space, and discuss applications to measurement theory. It is shown that the formalism allows a…
Although not as wide, and popular, as that of quantum mechanics, the investigation of fundamental aspects of statistical mechanics constitutes an important research field in the building of modern physics. Besides the interest for itself,…
Both statistics and quantum theory deal with prediction using probability. We will show that there can be established a connection between these two areas. This will at the same time suggest a new, less formalistic way of looking upon basic…
Measurement outcomes of a quantum state can be genuinely random (unpredictable) according to the basic laws of quantum mechanics. The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation puts constrains on the accuracy of two noncommuting observables.…
In a previous preprint (quant-ph/0012122) we introduced a ``contextual objectivity" formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). A central feature of this approach is to define the quantum state in physical rather than in mathematical terms, in…
Identical systems, or entities, are indistinguishable in quantum mechanics (QM), and the symmetrization postulate rules the possible statistical distributions of a large number of identical quantum entities. However, a thorough analysis on…
In classical estimation theory, the central limit theorem implies that the statistical error in a measurement outcome can be reduced by an amount proportional to n^(-1/2) by repeating the measures n times and then averaging. Using quantum…
Considering the recently established arbitrariness the Schroedinger equation has to be interpreted as an equation of motion for a statistical ensemble of particles. The statistical qualities of individual particles derive from the unknown…
Symmetries are widely used in modeling quantum systems but they do not contribute in postulates of quantum mechanics. Here we argue that logical, mathematical, and observational evidence require that symmetry should be considered as a…
A characteristical property of a classical physical theory is that the observables are real functions taking an exact outcome on every (pure) state; in a quantum theory, at the contrary, a given observable on a given state can take several…
I give a concise introduction to some essential concepts of statistical mechanics: 1. Probability theory (constrained distributions, concentration theorem, frequency estimation, hypothesis testing); 2. Macroscopic systems in equilibrium…
I give a highly selective overview of the way statistical mechanics explains the microscopic origins of the time asymmetric evolution of macroscopic systems towards equilibrium and of first order phase transitions in equilibrium. These…
Quantum mechanics is usually presented starting from a series of postulates about the mathematical framework. In this work we show that those same postulates can be derived by assuming that measurements are discrete interactions: that is,…
The study of measurements in quantum mechanics exposes many of the ways in which the quantum world is different. For example, one of the hallmarks of quantum mechanics is that observables may be incompatible, implying among other things…
The relationship between chaos and quantum mechanics has been somewhat uneasy -- even stormy, in the minds of some people. However, much of the confusion may stem from inappropriate comparisons using formal analyses. In contrast, our…
In previous articles we presented a derivation of Born's rule and unitary transforms in Quantum Mechanics (QM), from a simple set of axioms built upon a physical phenomenology of quantization. Physically, the structure of QM results of an…
We consider highly inaccurate measurements made on classical stochastic and quantum systems. In the quantum case such a \e{weak} measurement preserves coherence between the system's alternatives. We demonstrate that in both cases the…