Related papers: Complementarity and Scientific Rationality
The measurement conundrum seems to have plagued quantum mechanics for so long that impressions of an inconsistency amongst its axioms have spawned. A demonstration that such purported inconsistency is fictitious may then be in order and is…
This book concerns the metasemantics of quantum mechanics (QM). Roughly, it pursues an investigation at the intersection of philosophy of physics and philosophy of language, and it offers a critical analysis of rival explanations of the…
Recent philosophical discussions about metaphysical indeterminacy have been substantiated with the idea that quantum mechanics, one of the most successful physical theories in the history of science, provides explicit instances of worldly…
This paper presents an elementary introduction to Consistent Quantum Theory (CQT), as developed by Griffiths and others over the past 25 years. The theory is a version of orthodox(Copenhagen) quantum mechanics, based on the notion that the…
In this work celebrating the centenary of quantum mechanics, we review the principles of de Broglie Bohm theory, also known as pilot-wave theory and Bohmian mechanics. We assess the most common reading of it (the Nomological interpretation…
The two-slit experiment with quantum particles provides many insights into the behaviour of quantum mechanics, including Bohr's complementarity principle. Here we analyze Einstein's recoiling slit version of the experiment and show how the…
It is well known that Niels Bohr insisted on the necessity of classical concepts in the account of quantum phenomena. But there is little consensus concerning his reasons, and what he exactly meant by this. In this paper, I re-examine…
Taking Heisenberg's and Schrodinger's theories of quantum mechanics as his case study, De Regt's contextual theory of understanding argues that recognizing qualitatively characteristic consequences of a theory T without performing exact…
An ultimate universal theory -- a complete theory that accounts, via few and simple first principles, for all the phenomena already observed and that will ever be observed -- has been, and still is, the aspiration of most physicists and…
A critical re-examination of the double-slit experiment and its variants is presented to clarify the nature of what Feynmann called the ``central mystery'' and the ``only mystery'' of quantum mechanics, leading to an interpretation of…
Quantum mechanics under the Copenhagen interpretation is one of the most experimentally well verified formalisms. However, it is known that the interpretation makes explicit reference to external observation or "measurement." One says that…
In Crull (2015) it is argued that, in order to confront outstanding problems in cosmology and quantum gravity, interpretational aspects of quantum theory can by bypassed because decoherence is able to resolve them. As a result, Crull (2015)…
The orthodox quantum mechanics has been commonly regarded as being supported decisively by the polarization EPR experiments, in which Bell's inequalities have been violated. The given conclusion has been based, however, on several mistakes…
Quantum theory has been proved as an outstanding mystery in modern science. The predictions of science have turned out to be probabilistic. The principle of determinism has failed. For systems like weather, earthquakes, rolling dices etc...…
The delayed-choice quantum eraser represents an interesting experiment that exemplifies Bohr's principle of complementarity in a beautiful way. According to the complementarity principle, in a two-path interference experiment, the knowledge…
The representations of the world around in physics built with help of causality are analyzed and seems incomplete. The observer's causal representations form a closed logical system, i.e. the compact group related to cause-effect chains.…
Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein…
The Bohr--Einstein debate is one of the more remarkable protracted intellectual exchanges in the history of physics. Its influence has been lasting: One of the few clear patterns in a 2013 survey about quantum foundations was that the…
Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, a well known manifestation of the complementarity principle, has proved somewhat difficult to physically interpret. We show that, restated in quantum field theoretic language, the experiment submits to a…
The paper reviews and discusses four ideas scattered in previous papers of the author. First, objective properties of quantum systems are not associated with observables but are defined by preparations. Second, measurable results of…