Quantum Mechanics and Reality
By Virendra. Singh. 2004
217 citations recorded by the source corpus.
We begin by discussing ``What exists?'', i.e. ontology, in Classical Physics which provided a description of physical phenomena at the macroscopic level. The microworld however necessitates a introduction of Quantum ideas for its understanding. It is almost certain that the world is quantum mechanical at both microscopic as well as at macroscopic level. The problem of ontology of a Quantum world is a difficult one. It also depends on which interpretation is used. We first discuss some interpretations in which Quantum Mechanics does not provide a complete framework but has to be supplemented by extra ingredients e.g. (i) Copenhagen group of interpretations associated with the names of Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, von-Neumann, and (ii) de-Broglie-Bohm interpretations. We then look at some interpretations in which Quantum mechanics is supposed to provide the entire framework such as (i) Everett-deWitt many world, (ii) quantum histories interpretations. We conclude with some remarks on the rigidity of the formalism of quantum mechanics, which is sharp contrast to it's ontological fluidity.
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8596dc787eea3f573ea1c1303c2e3043a4a701bc
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Citations in the corpus
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: a dynamic reference work (2003, unknown): “Others had made this proposal before, as Bohm (1952) in his theory (itself preceded by de Broglie’s proposals from the 1920s), Everett (1957) in his relative-state interpretation and De Witt (1970) with the many-worlds interpretation.”
- Quantum superposition, entanglement, and state teleportation of a microorganism on an electromechanical oscillator (2015, background): “Rev Mod Phys 29:454–462 [4] DeWitt BS (1970) Quantum mechanics and reality.”
- Everettian Rationality: defending Deutsch's approach to probability in the Everett interpretation (2003, background): “(i) Old-style ‘‘Many-Worlds’’ interpretations in which worlds are added explicitly to the quantum formalism (see, e.g., DeWitt (1970) and Deutsch (1985), although Deutsch has since abandoned this approach; in fact, it is hard to find any remaining defendants of type (i) approaches).”
- Decoherence and the transition from quantum to classical -- REVISITED (2003, unknown): “It was taken out of mothballs over a decade later by Bryce DeWitt (1970) and DeWitt and Neill Graham (1973), who managed to upgrade its status from “virtually unknown” to “very controversial.””
- Quantum Mechanics on Spacetime I: Spacetime State Realism (2009, background): “’ (Einstein [1948]) 17 Why do we call the A-B effect classical? Because mathematically it is a classical consequence of the interactions between a U(1) connection and a complex field.”
- Do We Really Understand Quantum Mechanics? (2012, background): “Alternative points of view are considered as perfectly consistent: theories including additional variables (or “hidden variables”(2)) [9] [10]; modified dynamics of the state vector [4] [11] [12] [13] (non-linear and/or stochastic evolution) ; at the other extreme we have points of view such as the ”