Related papers: The One, the Many, and the Quantum
A classical dynamical system in a four-dimensional Euclidean space with universal time is considered. The space is hypothesized to be originally occupied by a uniform substance, pictured as a liquid, which at some time became supercooled.…
I explain in what sense the structure of space and time is probably vague or indefinite, a notion I define. This leads to the mathematical representation of location in space and time by a vague interval. From this, a principle of…
Zurek's existential interpretation of quantum mechanics suffers from three classical prejudices, including the belief that space and time are intrinsically and infinitely differentiated. They compel him to relativize the concept of…
After a summary of Bohr's views and their relation to Kant's theory of science, two fruitless lines of attack on the measurement problem are discussed: the way of the psi-ontologist and the way of the QBist. In the remainder of the paper…
At present, quantum theory leaves unsettled which quantities ontologically, physically exist in a quantum system. Do observables such as energy and position have meaningful values only at the precise moment of measurement, as in the…
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…
The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and…
The basic physical problems that necessitated the emergence of quantum physics are summarized, along with the elements of wave mechanics and its traditional statistical interpretation. Alternative interpretations to the statistical one,…
For a century, quantum theorists have been reading the mathematical entrails of quantum mechanics (QM) to divine the nature of quantum reality. But to little avail. In this paper a different approach is taken, namely to identify and explain…
Time, space, and matter are categories of our reasoning, whose properties appear to be fundamental. However, these require a scrutiny as in the extreme regime of the primordial universe these present quantum properties. What does it mean…
The quantum description of the microscopic world is incompatible with the classical description of the macroscopic world, both mathematically and conceptually. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that classical mechanics emerges from…
We reconsider briefly the relation between "physical quantity" and "physical reality in the light of recent interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. We argue, that these interpretations are conditioned from the epistemological relation between…
Quantum gravity (or quantum spacetime) is to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single theoretical framework and presented as the most important open puzzle in fundamental physics. The development of a microscopic theory…
This paper deals with the foundations of quantum mechanics. We start by outlining the characterisation, due to Birkhoff and Von Neumann, of the logical structures of the theories of classical physics and quantum mechanics, as boolean and…
Quantum mechanics has maintained over the years the reputation of being "the most obscure theory." It works perfectly well, but nobody seems to know why. It has been argued that the difficulty in understanding quantum theory is our failed…
Unitarity is a pillar of quantum theory. Nevertheless, it is also a source of several of its conceptual problems. We note that in a world where measurements are relational, as is the case in gravitation, quantum mechanics exhibits a…
The gap between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics has an important interpretive implication: the Universe must have an irreducible fundamental level, which determines the properties of matter at higher levels of organization. We…
Familiar formulations of classical and quantum mechanics are shown to follow from a general theory of mechanics based on pure states with an intrinsic probability structure. This theory is developed to the stage where theorems from quantum…
Space-time is one of the most essential, yet most mysterious concepts in physics. In quantum mechanics it is common to understand time as a marker of instances of evolution and define states around all the space but at one time; while in…
It is shown that the Schrodinger equation is a byproduct of more deterministic Boltzmann-like equation. All physical information is derived from the solution of this equation, which is a function of space and momentum. The additional terms…