Related papers: Undecidability in Physics: a Review
With the rapid development of quantum technology, one of the leading applications is the simulation of chemistry. Interestingly, even before full scale quantum computers are available, quantum computer science has exhibited a remarkable…
Quantum information theory has considerably helped in the understanding of quantum many-body systems. The role of quantum correlations and in particular, bipartite entanglement, has become crucial to characterise, classify and simulate…
General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very…
More than a speculative technology, quantum computing seems to challenge our most basic intuitions about how the physical world should behave. In this thesis I show that, while some intuitions from classical computer science must be…
The paper has heuristic character. The conceptual frame, based on the assumption of quantum uncertainty only, has been formerly introduced in two papers [S. Tosto, Il Nuovo Cimento B, vol. 111, n.2, 1996 and S. Tosto, Il Nuovo Cimento D,…
The notorious `measurement problem' has been roving around quantum mechanics for nearly a century since its inception, and has given rise to a variety of `interpretations' of quantum mechanics, which are meant to evade it. We argue that no…
Over the past 25 years, I have been involved in some intriguing developments in the foundations of physics, exploring the quantum reality problem, the relationship between quantum theory and gravity and the interplay between consciousness…
In Physics, we have laws that determine the time evolution of a given physical system, depending on its parameters and its initial conditions. When we have multi-stable systems, many attractors coexist so that their basins of attraction…
I investigate the question whether G\"odel's undecidability theorems play a crucial role in the search for a unified theory of physics. I conclude that unless the structure of space-time is fundamentally discrete we can never decide whether…
Wave-particle duality is often considered as the modern answer to the problem of the nature of light after more than 2000 years of questioning. It is also the answer given by quantum physics concerning the nature of matter particles and any…
This paper studies the energy decoherence of an interacting quantum system. It first reviews the experiments that motivated the postulates of quantum mechanics. It then discusses a decoherence that occurs dynamically in a closed system.…
This paper provides a novel metametaphysical approach to quantum indeterminacy. More specifically, it argues that bivalent quantum logic can successfully account for this kind of indeterminacy, given the non-truth-functional character of…
We reconsider some important foundational problems of quantum mechanics. After reviewing the measurement problem and discussing its unavoidability, we analyze some proposals to overcome it. This analysis leads us to reconsider the current…
It is usually stated that quantum mechanics presents problems with the identity of particles, the most radical position -supported by E. Schrodinger- asserting that elementary particles are not individuals. But the subject goes deeper, and…
We point out that some questions in quantum field theory are undecidable in a precise mathematical sense. More concretely, it will be demonstrated that there is no algorithm answering whether a given 2d supersymmetric Lagrangian theory…
In a series of recent papers we have introduced a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, which for brevity we will call the Montevideo interpretation. In it, the quantum to classical transition is achieved via a phenomenon called…
Quantum uncertainty is a well-known property of quantum mechanics that states the impossibility of predicting measurement outcomes of multiple incompatible observables simultaneously. In contrast, the uncertainty in the classical domain…
The success of the abstract model of computation, in terms of bits, logical operations, programming language constructs, and the like, makes it easy to forget that computation is a physical process. Our cherished notions of computation and…
The main ideas behind developments in the theory and technology of quantum computation were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by two physicists in the West and a mathematician in the former Soviet Union. It is not generally known…
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…