Related papers: Quantum Systems Other Than the Universe
We introduce a realist, unextravagant interpretation of quantum theory that builds on the existing physical structure of the theory and allows experiments to have definite outcomes, but leaves the theory's basic dynamical content…
The representations of the world around in physics built with help of causality are analyzed and seems incomplete. The observer's causal representations form a closed logical system, i.e. the compact group related to cause-effect chains.…
The theories of pre-quantum physics are standardly seen as representing physical systems and their properties. Quantum mechanics in its standard form is a more problematic case: here, interpretational problems have led to doubts about the…
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 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…
Some principles underpinning the running of the Universe are discussed. The most important, the machine principle, states that the Universe is a fully autonomous, self-organizing and self-testing quantum automaton. Continuous space and…
A unified conceptual foundation of classical and quantum physics is given, free of undefined terms. Ensembles are defined by extending the `probability via expectation' approach of Whittle to noncommuting quantities. This approach carries…
Quantum theory expresses the observable relations between physical properties in terms of probabilities that depend on the specific context described by the "state" of a system. However, the laws of physics that emerge at the macroscopic…
What is the major difference between large and small systems? At small length-scales the dynamics is dominated by fluctuations, whereas at large scales fluctuations are irrelevant. Therefore, any thermodynamically consistent description of…
We revise fundamental concepts in the dynamics of open quantum systems in the light of modern developments in the field. Our aim is to present a unified approach to the quantum evolution of open systems that incorporates the concepts and…
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…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
The standard presentation of the principles of quantum mechanics is critically reviewed both from the experimental/operational point and with respect to the request of mathematical consistency and logical economy. A simpler and more…
We present a new characterization of quantum theory in terms of simple physical principles that is different from previous ones in two important respects: first, it only refers to properties of single systems without any assumptions on the…
It is argued that the world is a dissipative dynamic system, a phase flow of which is formed by conformally-symplectic mapping. The key assumption is that the concept of energy in microcosm makes sense only for the steady motions…
We propose quantum-mechanical systems in which the number of spatial dimensions is promoted to a dynamical quantum variable, making the effective dimension state-dependent. Interestingly, systems of this form can exhibit enhanced symmetries…
In physics, every observation is made with respect to a frame of reference. Although reference frames are usually not considered as degrees of freedom, in all practical situations it is a physical system which constitutes a reference frame.…
Equilibrium is a rather ideal situation, the exception rather than the rule in Nature. Whenever the external or internal parameters of a physical system are varied its subsequent relaxation to equilibrium may be either impossible or take…
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…
I propose a new and direct connection between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics where I derive the quantum mechanical propagator from a variational principle. This variational principle is Hamilton's modified principle generalized…