Related papers: Realism and the wave-function
An assessment is given as to the extent to which pure unitary evolution, as distinct from environmental decohering interaction, can provide the transition necessary for an observer to interpret perceived quantum dynamics as classical. This…
The scientific methodology based on two descriptive levels, ontic (reality as it is ) and epistemic (observational), is briefly presented. Following Schr\"odinger, we point to the possible gap between these two descriptions. Our main aim is…
Some recent experiments claim to show that any model in which a quantum state represents mere information about an underlying physical reality of the system must make predictions which contradict those of quantum theory. The present work…
Schroedinger's wave function shows many aspects of a state of incomplete knowledge or information ("bit"): (1) it is usually defined on a space of classical configurations, (2) its generic entanglement is, therefore, analogous to…
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…
An attempt is made to formulate quantum mechanics (QM) in physical rather than in mathematical terms. It is argued that the appropriate conceptual framework for QM is "contextual objectivity", which includes an objective definition of the…
Since its emergence, quantum mechanics has been a challenge for an understanding of reality which is based on our intuition in a classical world. Nevertheless, it has often been tried to impose this understanding of reality on quantum…
It is shown that the formalism of quantum theory naturally incorporates the psychophysical parallelism and thereby interprets itself, if the subjective aspects are taken as equal partners alongside the objective aspects as determinants of…
The Quantum Hall Effects offer a rich variety of theoretical and experimental advances. They provide interesting insights on such topics as complementarity, gauge invariance, strong interactions, emergence of new theoretical concepts. This…
I will propose that the reality to which the quantum formalism implicitly refers is a kind of generalized history, the word history having here the same meaning as in the phrase sum-over-histories. This proposal confers a certain…
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…
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of quantum-scale experiments, the physical interpretations of these theories remain controversial. In this manuscript, we propose a new…
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…
A century on from the development of quantum theory, the interpretation of a quantum state is still discussed. If a physicist claims to have produced a system with a particular wave function, does this represent directly a physical wave of…
On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…
We use a simple example to illustrate why it is not possible to consider that a measurement reveals an underlying objective reality of a property of a quantum system, that continues the same after the measurement is performed. This kind of…
We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distribution of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has mass and charge density proportional to the modulus…
The quantum theory of a harmonic oscillator with a time dependent frequency arises in several important physical problems, especially in the study of quantum field theory in an external background. While the mathematics of this system is…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
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…