Related papers: Holism, Physical Theories and Quantum Mechanics
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 cosmology is the quantum theory of the entire universe. Although strange at first sight, it is appropriate because (1) our world appears to be fundamentally quantum, (2) the classical description of gravity breaks down at…
Bohmian mechnaics is the most naively obvious embedding imaginable of Schr\"odingers's equation into a completely coherent physical theory. It describes a world in which particles move in a highly non-Newtonian sort of way, one which may at…
It is argued that the traditional "realist" methodology of physics, according to which human concepts, laws and theories can grasp the essence of reality, is incompatible with the most fruitful interpretation of quantum formalism. The proof…
There are several important philosophical problems to which quantum mechanics is often said to have made significant contributions: - Determinism: quantum theory has been taken to refute determinism; -Free Will: in turn, this is thought to…
Considerable work has recently been directed toward developing resource theories of quantum coherence. In most approaches, a state is said to possess quantum coherence if it is not diagonal in some specified basis. In this letter we…
The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of "quantum fundamentalism" according to which everything in the universe (if not the…
Quantum theory can be understood as pointing to an ontology of relations. I observe that this reading of quantum mechanics is supported by the ubiquity of relationality in contemporary fundamental physics, including in classical mechanics,…
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…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…
We present the quantum measurement problem as a serious physics problem. Serious because without a resolution, quantum theory is not complete, as it does not tell how one should - in principle - perform measurements. It is physical in the…
A reformulation of a physical theory in which measurements at the initial and final moments of time are treated independently is discussed, both on the classical and quantum levels. Methods of the standard quantum mechanics are used to…
A brief account of the world view of classical physics is given first. We then recapitulate as to why the Copenhagen interpretation of the quantum mechanics had to renounce most of the attractive features of the clasical world view such as…
On classical phase spaces admitting just one complex-differentiable structure, there is no indeterminacy in the choice of the creation operators that create quanta out of a given vacuum. In these cases the notion of a quantum is universal,…
Quantum theory brings into question the compatibility of the twin desiderata of exact knowability of the present state of the physical world and perfect predictability of its future states. Bohr's coordination-causality complementarity…
Relativistic, scalar particles are considered, contained in a box with periodic boundary conditions. Although interactions are not expected to be a fundamental problem, we concentrate on free particles. By considering them to be harmonic…
Incompatibility between conjugate variables and complementary pictures comes in two kinds, exclusive of one another. The first kind is unconditional, and the second conditional on quantum's indivisibility. We employ this distinction to…
A different approach towards quantum theory is proposed in this paper. The basis is taken to be conceptual variables, physical variables that may be accessible or inaccessible, i.e., it may be possible or impossible to assign numerical…
What is the nature of reality? How should be an answer to this question? At this level, we are so deep that all our concepts are obscure. Quantum theory (QT) is at this level. The quest for interpreting it fails because the clarity of our…
A diagonalizable non-Hermitian Hamiltonian having a real spectrum may be used to define a unitary quantum system, if one modifies the inner product of the Hilbert space properly. We give a comprehensive and essentially self-contained review…