scholarly journals Quantum Mechanics as a Physical Theory

Nature ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 135 (3425) ◽  
pp. 1025-1026 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. T. F.
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Theory

The Event Universe

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leemon B. McHenry
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Field ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Alfred North Whitehead ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Linguistic Methods

What kinds of things are events? Battles, explosions, accidents, crashes, rock concerts would be typical examples of events and these would be reinforced in the way we speak about the world. Events or actions function linguistically as verbs and adverbs. Philosophers following Aristotle have claimed that events are dependent on substances such as physical objects and persons. But with the advances of modern physics, some philosophers and physicists have argued that events are the basic entities of reality and what we perceive as physical bodies are just very long events spread out in space-time. In other words, everything turns out to be events. This view, no doubt, radically revises our ordinary common sense view of reality, but as our event theorists argue common sense is out of touch with advancing science. In The Event Universe: The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a more adequate basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead’s theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as another key proponent of this theory, W. V. Quine. In this manner, McHenry defends the naturalized and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.

Can quantum cryptography imply quantum mechanics? -- reply to Smolin

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-175
Author(s):  
H. Halvorson ◽  
J. Bub
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Cryptography ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Independence Condition

Clifton, Bub, and Halvorson (CBH) have argued that quantum mechanics can be derived from three cryptographic, or broadly information-theoretic, axioms. But Smolin disagrees, and he has given a toy theory that he claims is a counterexample. Here we show that Smolin's toy theory violates an independence condition for spacelike separated systems that was assumed in the CBH argument. We then argue that any acceptable physical theory should satisfy this independence condition.

Are Galaxies and Elementary Particles Real? Objects, Reality, Space and Time. An ISST Forum

KronoScope ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Rémy Lestienne
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Present Article ◽  
International Society ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Niels Bohr ◽  
Large Structures ◽  
Real Objects ◽  
Microscopic World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Web

AbstractWhat is an object? What conditions declare it to be “real”? When can a concept, that has been proposed in a physical theory to describe our observations, be declared “physical” or, in other words, to be an element of reality? These questions pertain to the old debate between idealism and realism. In the last decades, the discussion was principally fuelled by the development of Quantum Mechanics, and particularly by the study of the process of measurement and the development of the concept of complementarity by Niels Bohr and the School of Copenhagen. In a few pages taken from The View from the Center of the Universe, Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams propose to limit the use of the concept of existence not only toward the microscopic world but also toward the very large structures of the Universe. This moves us to reopen the Pandora's Box, in a way in which the consideration of Time may play a fundamental role, as Whitehead, for example, insisted on. However, the interrogation seems to drift necessarily towards a reflection onto the concept of emergence and its relation with time. The present article is the end product of a three month's long Forum opened in February 2008 by the initiator among members of the International Society for the Study of Time, onto the “Gnomon” zone of the web site of the Association. Contributions from Nancy Abrams, Mark Aultman, Troy Camplin, Julius T. Fraser, Paul Harris, Marcel Le Bel, Jean Lette, Carlos Montemayor, Giovanni Vicario and Amrit Srecko Sorli were particularly beneficial to the discussion.

scholarly journals THE POINT PROCESSES OF THE GRW THEORY OF WAVE FUNCTION COLLAPSE

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 155-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
RODERICH TUMULKA
Keyword(s):  
Wave Function ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Existence And Uniqueness ◽  
Joint Distribution ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Point Processes ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Wave Function Collapse ◽  
Relativistic Version

The Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber (GRW) theory is a physical theory that, when combined with a suitable ontology, provides an explanation of quantum mechanics. The so-called collapse of the wave function is problematic in conventional quantum theory but not in the GRW theory, in which it is governed by a stochastic law. A possible ontology is the flash ontology, according to which matter consists of random points in space-time, called flashes. The joint distribution of these points, a point process in space-time, is the topic of this work. The mathematical results concern mainly the existence and uniqueness of this distribution for several variants of the theory. Particular attention is paid to the relativistic version of the GRW theory that was developed in 2004.

Electrodynamics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Cushing
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Quantum Field Theory ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Special Theory ◽  
Classical Electrodynamics ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Electric And Magnetic Fields ◽  
Fundamental Physical

Electric charges interact via the electric and magnetic fields they produce. Electrodynamics is the study of the laws governing these interactions. The phenomena of electricity and of magnetism were once taken to constitute separate subjects. By the beginning of the nineteenth century they were recognized as closely related topics and by the end of that century electromagnetic phenomena had been unified with those of optics. Classical electrodynamics provided the foundation for the special theory of relativity, and its unification with the principles of quantum mechanics has led to modern quantum field theory, arguably our most fundamental physical theory to date.

Pure Wave Mechanics

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Measurement ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Measurement Problem ◽  
Wave Mechanics ◽  
Linear Dynamics ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Relative State ◽  
Quantum Probabilities ◽  
Pure Wave Mechanics

Everett thought of the quantum measurement problem as one of providing a consistent description of nested measurement. He proposed solving the measurement problem by simply supposing that all physical systems whatsoever always obey the linear dynamics and hence never collapse. Dropping the collapse dynamics immediately solves the measurement problem, but it introduces two new problems: explaining determinate measurement records and explaining quantum probabilities. In addition to these, we also consider the problem of empirical coherence in the context of pure wave mechanics. We then discuss how Everett himself understood determinate records and probabilities in his relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics. What he ultimately provided was an argument that his formulation of quantum mechanics was consistent and empirically faithful. We will see why this is a relative weak standard by which to judge the empirical adequacy of a physical theory.

scholarly journals FISICA E REALISMO

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nino Zanghì
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Completeness Of Quantum Mechanics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The question of realism in physics is addressed by following the path laid out by Einstein and Bell. After an exposition of the problem of the completeness of quantum mechanics and a discussion of some aspects of the debate between Einstein and Bohr, we outline what are the requirements of a formulation of quantum mechanics that is not based on such vague and imprecise notions as “ measurement” or “ observer.” Finally , we show that a physical theory that describes “stuff” in the space that evolves over time makes transparent the relationship between theory and empirical reality. The conclusion has a Kantian flavor.

scholarly journals Typicality in Pure Wave Mechanics

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 1640009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Wave Mechanics ◽  
Standard Quantum ◽  
Quantum Probabilities ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Pure Wave Mechanics

Hugh Everett III's pure wave mechanics is a deterministic physical theory with no probabilities. He nevertheless sought to show how his theory might be understood as making the same statistical predictions as the standard collapse formulation of quantum mechanics. We will consider Everett's argument for pure wave mechanics, how it depends on the notion of branch typicality, and the relationship between the predictions of pure wave mechanics and the standard quantum probabilities.

scholarly journals A glance beyond the quantum model

2009 ◽  
Vol 466 (2115) ◽  
pp. 881-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Navascués ◽  
Harald Wunderlich
Keyword(s):  
General Relativity ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Quantum Mechanical ◽  
Quantum Model ◽  
Microscopic Structure ◽  
Quantum Mechanical System ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Quantum Limits ◽  
The Universe

One of the most important problems in physics is to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity, and some authors have suggested that this may be realized at the expense of having to drop the quantum formalism in favour of a more general theory. Here, we propose a mechanism to make general claims on the microscopic structure of the Universe by postulating that any post-quantum theory should recover classical physics in the macroscopic limit. We use this mechanism to bound the strength of correlations between distant observers in any physical theory. Although several quantum limits are recovered, such as the set of two-point quantum correlators, our results suggest that there exist plausible microscopic theories of Nature that predict correlations impossible to reproduce in any quantum mechanical system.

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