Related papers: Complementarity and Scientific Rationality
The extravagances of quantum mechanics never fail to enrich daily the debate around natural philosophy. Entanglement, non-locality, collapse, many worlds, many minds, and subjectivism have challenged generations of thinkers. Its approach…
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…
A relativistic version of the (consistent or decoherent) histories approach to quantum theory is developed on the basis of earlier work by Hartle, and used to discuss relativistic forms of the paradoxes of spherical wave packet collapse,…
The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of material systems,…
It is shown that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen conclusion concerning the `incompleteness' of Quantum Mechanics is invalidated by two logical errors in their argument. If it were possible to perform the proposed gedanken experiment it would,…
Quantum mechanics describes successfully numerous quantum phenomena both microscopic and macroscopic, such as superconductivity. But the controversies about quantum mechanics, in the old days and present day, reveal fundamental obscurity in…
Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by having it follow from…
I outline a neo-Bohrian interpretation of quantum mechanics -- a view of quantum mechanics that accords with the core insights in Bohr's thinking, with a twist that justifies the prefix `neo.' In a second part of the paper, I show how von…
Physical superpositions exist both in classical and in quantum physics. However, what is exactly meant by 'superposition' in each case is extremely different. In this paper we discuss some of the multiple interpretations which exist in the…
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…
This paper gives a thorough critique of the foundations of quantum physics in its mainstream interpretation (i.e., treating pure states as primitives, without reference to hidden variables, and without modifications of the quantum laws).…
This article presents a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. It extends the meaning of ``measurement'' to include all property-indicating facts. Intrinsically space is undifferentiated: there are no points on which a world of locally…
We analyze the experiment recently realized by S. Afshar et al. [1] in order to refute the principle of complementarity. We discuss the general meaning of this principle and show that contrarily to the claim of the authors Bohr's…
Without Niels Bohr, QBism would be nothing. But QBism is not Bohr. This paper attempts to show that, despite a popular misconception, QBism is no minor tweak to Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is something quite distinct.…
In its most orthodox form, Bohr's Complementarity Principle states that a quanton (a quantum system consisting of a Boson or Fermion) can either behave as a particle or as wave, but never simultaneosuly as both. A less orthodox…
In the past both instrumentalism and empiricism have inspired certain pragmatic elements into the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The relation of such pragmatisms with the correspondence principle is discussed. It is argued…
The assumptions added by Bohr and concerning the Hilbert space (formed by all solutions of Schroedinger equation) changed fundamentally the original physical interpretation of these solutions proposed earlier by Schroedinger. This new…
It has been shown that the criticism of Pauli as well as of Susskind and Glogover may be avoided if the standard quantum-mechanical mathematical model has been suitably extended. There is not more any reason for Einstein's citicism, either,…
Following a courageous denunciation by Barton Richter in {\it Physics Today,} November 2006, of contemporary particle physics as being "theological speculations," we present insufficiencies of special relativity, quantum mechanics,…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…