Related papers: Does one still need to "shut up and calculate"?
Feynman famously recommended accepting the basic principles of quantum mechanics without trying to guess the machinery behind the law. One of the corollaries of the Uncertainty Principle is that the knowledge of probability amplitudes does…
To understand the foundations of quantum mechanics, we have to think carefully about how theoretical concepts are rooted in -- and limited by -- the nature of experience, as Bohr attempted to show. Geometrical pictures of physical phenomena…
The major conceptual difficulties of quantum mechanics are analyzed. They are: the notion "wave-particle", the probabilistic interpretation of the Schroedinger wave \psi-function and hence the probability amplitude and its phase, long-range…
Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…
How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is…
The path integral formalism gives a very illustrative and intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics but due to its difficult sum over phases one usually prefers Schr\"odinger's approach. We will show that it is possible to calculate…
We generalize classical statistical mechanics to describe the kinematics and the dynamics of systems whose variables are constrained by a single quantum postulate (discreteness of the spectrum of values of at least one variable of the…
A type of mechanics will be presented that possesses some distinctive properties. On the one hand, its physical description & rules of operation are readily comprehensible & intuitively clear. On the other, it fully satisfies all observable…
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand the…
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…
For a century, quantum theorists have been reading the mathematical entrails of quantum mechanics (QM) to divine the nature of quantum reality. But to little avail. In this paper a different approach is taken, namely to identify and explain…
We attempt to contribute some novel points of view to the "foundations of quantum mechanics", using mathematical tools from "quantum probability theory" (such as the theory of operator algebras). We first introduce an abstract algebraic…
This introductory text on the basics of quantum mechanics is intended to serve as a kind of travel guide through the quantum world. It starts by asking whether quantum physics is important, or weird, or incomprehensible. It explains why…
To date, quantum mechanics has proven to be our most successful theoretical model. However, it is still surrounded by a "mysterious halo" that can be summarized in a simple but challenging question: Why quantum phenomena are not understood…
It is the matter of fact that quantum mechanics operates with notions that are not determined in the frame of the mechanics' formalism. Among them we can call the notion of "wave-particle" (that, however, does not appear in both classical…
Quantum sensing is a rapidly growing approach to probe fundamental physics and explore new phase space for possible new physics with precision and highly sensitive measurements in our quest to understand the deep structure of matter and its…
Applications of quantum mechanics have led to many successful predictions and explanations of puzzling phenomena, and we now apply quantum mechanics to gain, process, and communicate information in novel ways. We can understand quantum…
Is quantum mechanics about 'states'? Or is it basically another kind of probability theory? It is argued that the elementary formalism of quantum mechanics operates as a well-justified alternative to 'classical' instantiations of a…
No matter how counterintuitive they are, quantum phenomena are all simple consequences of the laws of Quantum Mechanics. It is not needed to extend the theory with hidden mechanisms or additional principles to explain what Quantum Mechanics…
Physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman once remarked ``We choose to examine a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality,…