Related papers: Naive Realism about Operators
This work is about Bohmian mechanics, a non-relativistic quantum theory about the motion of particles and their trajectories, named after its inventor David Bohm (Bohm,1952). This mechanics resolves all paradoxes associated with the…
The paper points out that the modern formulation of Bohm's quantum theory known as Bohmian mechanics is committed only to particles' positions and a law of motion. We explain how this view can avoid the open questions that the traditional…
Since its inception, many physicists have seen in quantum mechanics the possibility, if not the necessity, of bringing cognitive aspects into the play, which were instead absent, or unnoticed, in the previous classical theories. In this…
During many years since the birth of quantum mechanics, instrumentalist interpretations prevailed: the meaning of the theory was expressed in terms of measurements results. But in the last decades, several attempts to interpret it from a…
Richard Feynman famously declared, "I think that I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics." Sean Carroll lamented the persistence of this sentiment in a recent opinion piece entitled, "Even Physicists Don't…
The use of Bohmian mechanics as a practical tool for modeling non-relativistic quantum phenomena of matter provides clear evidence of its success, not only as a way to interpret the foundations of quantum mechanics, but also as a…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
Three problems stand in the way of deriving classical theories from quantum mechanics: those of realist interpretation, of classical properties and of quantum measurement. Recently, we have identified some tacit assumptions that lie at the…
In the first part of the paper I argue that an ontology of events is precise, flexible and general enough so as to cover the three main alternative formulations of quantum mechanics as well as theories advocating an antirealistic view of…
A deterministic Bohmian mechanics for operators with continuous and discrete spectra is presented. Randomness enters only through initial conditions. Operators with discrete spectra are incorporated into Bohmian mechanics by associating…
The reality of Bohm's intellectual journey is very different from what is often claimed by the proponents of "Bohmian Mechanics" and others as we will explain in this paper. He did not believe a mechanical explanation of quantum phenomena…
The concept of number is fundamental to the formulation of any physical theory. We give a heuristic motivation for the reformulation of Quantum Mechanics in terms of non-standard real numbers called Quantum Real Numbers. The standard axioms…
We present an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation of the formalism of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The basic difference is that the new interpretation is formulated in the language of epistemological realism. It involves a…
It is shown that, for a harmonic oscillator in the ground state, Bohmian mechanics and quantum mechanics predict values of opposite sign for certain time correlations. The discrepancy can be explained by the fact that Bohmian mechanics has…
The quantum mechanical commutation relations, which are directly related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, have a crucial importance for understanding the quantum mechanics of students. During undergraduate level courses, the…
Given two or more non-commuting observables, it is generally not possible to simultaneously assign precise values to each. This quantum mechanical uncertainty principle is widely understood to be encapsulated by some form of uncertainty…
The most peculiar, specifically quantum, features of quantum mechanics --- quantum nonlocality, indeterminism, interference of probabilities, quantization, wave function collapse during measurement --- are explained on a logical-geometrical…
The measurement problem in quantum mechanics originates in the inability of the Schr\"odinger equation to predict definite outcomes of measurements. This is due to the lack of objectivity of the eigenstates of the measuring apparatus. Such…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this…
Paul Busch has emphasized on various occasions the importance for physics of going beyond a merely instrumentalist view of quantum mechanics. Even if we cannot be sure that any particular realist interpretation describes the world as it…