Related papers: Quantum Universe and its Elusive Classicality
Quantum theory is extremely successful in explaining most physical phenomena, and is not contradicted by any experiment. Yet, the theory has many puzzling features : the occurrence of probabilities, the unclear distinction between the…
Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence…
It is commonly expected that quantum theory is universal, in that it describes the world at all scales. Yet, quantum effects at the macroscopic scale continue to elude our experimental observation. This fact is commonly attributed to…
A novel two-tiered organization of the microworld is presented, in which only the fundamental quantum fields of the standard model of particle physics (electrons, photons, quarks, etc.) are true quantum waves, exhibiting linear…
In resisting attempts to explain the unity of a whole in terms of a multiplicity of interacting parts, quantum mechanics calls for an explanatory concept that proceeds in the opposite direction: from unity to multiplicity. It concerns the…
Students in quantum mechanics class are taught that the wave function contains all knowable information about an isolated system. Later in the course, this view seems to be contradicted by the mysterious density matrix, which introduces a…
The observable universe is fundamentally inhomogeneous and anisotropic. Quantum description of the generation of these inhomogeneities and anisotropies is ill-understood and unsatisfactory. After providing a brief account of the standard…
The most striking observable feature of our indeterministic quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, and scale on which the deterministic laws of classical physics hold to an excellent approximation. This essay describes how this…
The so-called quantum measurement problems are solved from a new perspective. One of the main observations is that the basic entities of our world are {\it particles}, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary process, hence…
We present a panoramic view on various attempts to "solve" the problems of quantum measurement and macro-objectivation, i.e. of the transition from a probabilistic quantum mechanic microscopic world to a deterministic classical macroscopic…
In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, we postulate a low-entropy boundary condition (the Past Hypothesis) to account for the temporal asymmetry. In this paper, I show that the Past Hypothesis also contains enough information to…
Quantum mechanics is derived from the principle that the universe contain as much variety as possible, in the sense of maximizing the distinctiveness of each subsystem. The quantum state of a microscopic system is defined to correspond to…
We consider the quantum-to-classical transition for macroscopic systems coupled to their environments. By applying Born's Rule, we are led to a particular set of quantum trajectories, or an unravelling, that describes the state of the…
We perform an experimental test where we directly observe light-induced electron transitions with a macroscopic spatial discontinuity. The effect is related to the fundamental indivisibility of macroscopic orbit-like quantum states…
Classical physics and quantum physics suggest two meta-physical types of reality: the classical notion of a objectively definite reality with properties "all the way down," and the quantum notion of an objectively indefinite type of…
It is well-known that decoherence is a crucial barrier in realizing various quantum information processing tasks; on the other hand, it plays a pivotal role in explaining how a quantum system's fragile state leads to the robust classical…
We continue our efforts to understand, within the framework of the quantum mechanics of the universe as a whole, the quasiclassical realm of familiar experience as a feature emergent from the Hamiltonian of the elementary particles and the…
An emergent theory of quantum measurement arises directly by considering the particular subset of many body wavefunctions that can be associated with classical condensed matter and its interaction with delocalized wavefunctions. This…
Effective classicality of a property of a quantum system can be defined using redundancy of its record in the environment. This allows quantum physics to approximate the situation encountered in the classical world: The information about a…
The quantum measurement problems are revisited from a new perspective. One of the main ideas of this work is that the basic entities of our world are various types of particles, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary…