Related papers: Fermi and the Elucidation of Matter
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…
We present a detailed perturbative study of the dynamics of several types of atom-atom correlations in the famous Fermi problem. This is an archetypal model to study micro-causality in the quantum domain where two atoms, the first initially…
Niels Bohr wrote: "There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." In an…
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…
We present a general formalism with the aim of describing the situation of an entity, how it is, how it reacts to experiments, how we can make statistics with it, and how it changes under the influence of the rest of the universe. Therefore…
We set out a fundamental ontology of atomism in terms of matter points. While being most parsimonious, this ontology is able to match both classical and quantum mechanics, and it remains a viable option for any future theory of cosmology…
We follow the example of Cabibbo by revising the Standard Model (SM) to present a universal mass structure for fermions. A universal Higgs coupling for each species of fundamental fermions moves the SM towards a Theory of Matter, albeit…
Thomas-Fermi theory is developed to evaluate nuclear matrix elements averaged on the energy shell, on the basis of independent particle Hamiltonians. One- and two-body matrix elements are compared with the quantal results and it is…
The interpretation of quantum mechanics has been discussed since this theme first was brought up by Einstein and Bohr. This article describes a proposal for a new foundation of quantum theory, partly drawing upon ideas from statistical…
Motivated by a revision of the classical equations of electromagnetism that allow for the inclusion of solitary waves in the solution space, the material collected in these notes examines the consequences of adopting the modified model in…
A simple mapping procedure is presented by which classical orbits and path integrals for the motion of a point particle in flat space can be transformed directly into those in curved space with torsion. Our procedure evolved from…
A quantum mechanical theory is proposed which abandons an external parameter ``time'' in favor of a self-adjoint operator on a Hilbert space whose elements represent measurement events rather than system states. The standard quantum…
A phenomenological theory is presented for two-dimensional quantum liquids in terms of the Fermi surface geometry. It is shown that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the properties of an interacting electron system and its…
The most successful "Standard Model" allows one to define the so-called "Elementary Particles". Now from another point of view, philosophical, how can we think of them? Which kind of a status can be attributed to Elementary Particles and…
We elaborate on the existing idea that quantum mechanics is an emergent phenomenon, in the form of a coarse-grained description of some underlying deterministic theory. We apply the Ricci flow as a technical tool to implement dissipation,…
The standard model of elementary interactions has long qualified as a theory of matter, in which the postulated conservation laws (one baryonic and three leptonic) acquire theoretical meaning. However, recent observations of lepton number…
Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality. Many of the…
Both statistics and quantum theory deal with prediction using probability. We will show that there can be established a connection between these two areas. This will at the same time suggest a new, less formalistic way of looking upon basic…
Quantum mechanics, information theory, and relativity theory are the basic foundations of theoretical physics. The acquisition of information from a quantum system is the interface of classical and quantum physics. Essential tools for its…
A new density matrix and corresponding quantum kinetic equations are introduced for fermions undergoing coherent evolution either in time (coherent particle production) or in space (quantum reflection). A central element in our derivation…