English

Cellular automaton ontology, bits, qubits, and the Dirac equation

Quantum Physics 2024-11-06 v2 Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases History and Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

Cornerstones of the Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics are its ontological states that evolve by permutations, in this way never creating would-be quantum mechanical superposition states. We review and illustrate this with a classical Ising spin chain. It is shown that it can be related to the Weyl equation in the continuum limit. Yet, the model of discrete spins or bits unavoidably becomes a model of qubits by generating superpositions, if only slightly deformed. We study modifications of its signal velocity which, however, do not relate to mass terms. To incorporate the latter, we consider the Dirac equation in 1+1 dimensions and sketch an underlying discrete deterministic "necklace of necklaces" automaton that qualifies as ontological.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.08253,
  title  = {Cellular automaton ontology, bits, qubits, and the Dirac equation},
  author = {Hans-Thomas Elze},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.08253},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

17 pages, 1 figure; v2 with 7 refs added to Sec 1; accepted for publ in Int J Qu Info

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:17:52.858Z