Related papers: Reversibility and Irreversibility within the Quant…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…
We consider a very general class of theories, process theories, which capture the underlying structure common to most theories of physics as we understand them today (be they established, toy or speculative theories). Amongst these…
Quantum and classical mechanics are derived using four natural physical principles: (1) the laws of nature are invariant under time evolution, (2) the laws of nature are invariant under tensor composition, (3) the laws of nature are…
I compare the role of the information in the classical and quantum dynamics by examining the relation between information flows in measurements and the ability of observers to reverse evolutions. I show that in the Newtonian dynamics…
The emergence of irreversibility in physical processes, despite the fundamentally reversible nature of quantum mechanics, remains an open question in physics. This thesis explores the intricate relationship between quantum mechanics and…
Scientists continue to wrestle with the enigma of time. Is time a dynamic or a fundamental property of spacetime? Why does it have an arrow pointing from past to future? Why are physical laws time-symmetric in a universe with broken…
In this review we present the problem of time in quantum physics, including a short history of the problem and the known objections about considering time a quantum observable. The need to deal with time as an observable is elaborated…
The problem of time in quantum gravity occurs because `time' is taken to have a different meaning in each of general relativity and ordinary quantum theory. This incompatibility creates serious problems with trying to replace these two…
Irreversibility is often considered to characterize measurements in quantum mechanics. Fundamental problems with this characterization are addressed. First, whether a measurement is made in quantum mechanics is an arbitrary decision on the…
A legend tells that once Loschmidt asked Boltzmann on what happens to his statistical theory if one inverts the velocities of all particles, so that, due to the reversibility of Newton's equations, they return from the equilibrium to a…
It is one of the most important and long-standing issues of physics to derive the irreversibility out of a time-reversal symmetric equation of motion. The present paper considers the breaking of the time-reversal symmetry in open quantum…
It was generally believed throughout the 20-th century that irreversibility is a purely classical event without operator counterpart. However, a classical irreversible system cannot be consistently decomposed into a finite number of…
The picture of space-time that Minkowski created in 1907 has been followed by two important developments in physics not contained in the original picture: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We will argue that the use of concepts of…
Time is absolute in standard quantum theory and dynamical in general relativity. The combination of both theories into a theory of quantum gravity leads therefore to a "problem of time". In my essay I shall investigate those consequences…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
Loschmidt's paradox asks why macroscopic irreversibility is universal despite the time-reversal symmetry of microscopic dynamics. We argue that irreversibility is not a property of the dynamics but of accessibility: chaotic evolution drives…
The idea that the dynamical properties of quantum systems are invariably relative to other systems has recently regained currency. Using Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) for a case study, this paper calls attention to a question that has…
Time reversal symmetry is a fundamental property of many quantum mechanical systems. The relation between statistical physics and time reversal is subtle and not all statistical theories conserve this particular symmetry, most notably…
Advances in our understanding of the physical universe have impacted dramatically on how we view ourselves. Right at the core of all modern thinking about the universe is the assumption that dynamics is an elemental feature that exists…
In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical…