Related papers: The basic ideas of quantum mechanics
From the very beginning, Quantum Mechanics has been accompanied by crucial foundational questions: the possibility of visualizing physical processes, the limits of measurement epitomized by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the…
Even though quantum mechanics has existed for almost 100 years, questions concerning the foundation and interpretation of the theory still remain. These issues have gathered more attention in recent years, but does this mean that physicists…
Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by being based on two…
Since its inception, many physicists have seen in quantum mechanics the possibility, if not the necessity, of bringing cognitive aspects into the play, which were instead absent, or unnoticed, in the previous classical theories. In this…
Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by having it follow from…
Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics has challenged our conceptions of how the universe ought to work; however, the equations of quantum mechanics can be too computationally difficult to solve…
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…
Foundational investigations in quantum mechanics, both experimental and theoretical, gave birth to the field of quantum information science. Nevertheless, the foundations of quantum mechanics themselves remain hotly debated in the…
Quantum Mechanics (QM) stands alone as a (very) successful physical theory, but the meaning of its variables and the status of many quantities in the mathematical formalism is obscure. This unique situation prompted the need for attribution…
In this paper a didactic approach is described which immediately leads to an understanding of those postulates of quantum mechanics used most frequently in quantum computation. Moreover, an interpretation of quantum mechanics is presented…
Since the introduction of quantum mechanics, it has been taught mostly as a theoretical subject. It is also viewed as a theory that provides a best understanding of the nature, but which does not have much practical applications in our day…
Quantum computers take advantage of interfering quantum alternatives in order to handle problems that might be too time consuming with algorithms based on classical logic. Developing quantum computers requires new ways of thinking beyond…
Quantum Mechanics (QM) has faced deep controversies and debates since its origin when Werner Heisenberg proposed the first mathematical formalism capable to operationally account for what had been recently discovered as the new field of…
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…
Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on what a quantum state truly represents. One possibility is that a pure quantum state corresponds…
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…
Interpretational problems with quantum mechanics can be phrased precisely by only talking about empirically accessible information. This prompts a mathematical reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of classical mechanics. We survey…
This essay provides a short introduction to the ideas and potential implications of quantum physics for scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Quantum-inspired ideas pepper current discourse in all of these fields, in ways…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
This brief survey analyzes the epistemological implications about the role of observer in the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. As we know, the goal of most interpretations of quantum mechanics is to avoid the apparent intrusion of the…