Related papers: Theories of Physics and Impossibilities
Quantum theory revolutionised physics by introducing a new fundamental constant and a new mathematical framework to describe the observed phenomena at the atomic scale. These new concepts run counter to our familiar notions of classical…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
This paper examines the incommensurability thesis - one of the most important and controversial ideas to emerge from the simultaneous work of Kuhn and Feyerabend. In the first half, I discuss three aspects of incommensurability -…
I explore whether it is possible to make sense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality by taking the proper subject of physics to be correlation and only correlation, and by separating the problem of understanding the…
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 problem of the determinism of Quantum Mechanics has been a main one during the 20th century. At the same time, in the context of Logic and Set Theory, the importance of ancient paradoxes as well as the appearance of many new ones, has…
Three basic postulates for Quantum Theory are proposed, namely the Probability, Maximum-Speed and Hilbert-Space postulates. Subsequently we show how these postulates give rise to well-known and widely used quantum results, as the…
It is argued that quantum mechanics follows naturally from the assumptions that there are no fundamental causal laws but only probabilities for physical processes that are constrained by symmetries, and reality is relational in the sense…
Here we continue with the ideas expressed in "On the strangeness of quantum mechanics" aiming to demonstrate more concretely how this philosophical outlook might be used as a key for resolving the measurement problem. We will address in…
Many widely different problems have a common mathematical structure wherein limited knowledge lead to ambiguity that can be captured conveniently using a concept of invisibility that requires the introduction of negative values for…
Quantum mechanics is a theory that is as effective as it is counterintuitive. While quantum practices operate impeccably, they compel us to embrace enigmatic phenomena like the collapse of the state vector and non-locality, thereby pushing…
In this work, we reveal a new type of impossibility discovered in our recent research which forbids comparing the closeness of multiple unknown quantum states with any non-trivial threshold in a perfect or an unambiguous way. This…
Probability theory can be modified in essentially one way while maintaining consistency with the basic Bayesian framework. This modification results in copies of standard probability theory for real, complex or quaternion probabilities.…
The probabilistic predictions of quantum theory are conventionally obtained from a special probabilistic axiom. But that is unnecessary because all the practical consequences of such predictions follow from the remaining, non-probabilistic,…
In this letter, we point to three widely accepted challenges that the quantum theory, quantum information, and quantum foundations communities are currently facing: indeterminism, the semantics of conditional probabilities, and the spooky…
We discuss new approaches to fundamental problems of mathematics and mathematical physics such as mathematical foundation of quantum field theory, the Riemann hypothesis, and construction of noncommutative algebraic geometry.
There exist dozens of interpretations of quantum theory, but they do not seem to contribute much to understanding the theory. This paper attempts to clarify some issues that are discussed in those interpretations. The main keywords are:…
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…
Interpretations of key concepts, such as uncertainty relations, kinetic energy, value of an observable, probability distributions, the projection or collapse of a wave function postulate, and discrete versus continuous values, that appear…
Taking the view that computation is after all physical, we argue that physics, particularly quantum physics, could help extend the notion of computability. Here, we list the important and unique features of quantum mechanics and then…