Empirical quantum mechanics

Belal Ehsan Baaquie

Ken Krechmer

This paper is a response to the EPR paper titled: "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?", published in Physical Review in 1935. A quantum-mechanical (QM) measurement function describes a distribution of local results and each empirical measurement process produces one result as exact as allowed by a measuring instrument calibrated to a non-local unit standard. Repeating these empirical measurements produces a bell shaped distribution of measurement results. Each of these distributions can be compared to the other. To precisely compare a QM measurement function describing a distribution of eigenvectors to a distribution of repetitive empirical measurement results, it is necessary to determine, by calibration, the precision of the eigenvectors to the same standard as the empirical results, because each eigenvector evidences uncertainty relative to a standard. When the calibration process is recognized as formal as well as empirical, QM measurement function results and metrology measurement process results are unified.

Guolin Wu

Kantian philosophy provided a strong foundation for classical Newtonian mechanics; however, it is difficult to fully account for the features of quantum mechanics. Functionalized and structured a priori knowledge provides only an additional explanation in terms of the hierarchy and role of knowledge; nevertheless, it does not fundamentally alter Kant’s traditional concept, and the transformed a priori knowledge still fails to reveal the state of knowledge in quantum mechanics. Therefore, this chapter is going to construct a new notion of “trans-empirical” that absorbs both the meanings of transcendental and a priori and the meaning of experience to understand quantum mechanics, so that trans-empirical is itself capable of being linked to experience. The trans-empirical refers to something that surpasses experience but also connects it and enables it. This inherent tension between surpassing and connecting experience is what allows objects in quantum mechanics and superstring theory to possess a trans-empirical feature. Different quantum states correspond to distinct quantum realities, and quantum reality is trans-empirical reality, that is, between the possible world and the real world. A single measurement of a quantum system provides only a partial glimpse of its overall reality. It is the whole of the various realities that completely describes the quantum reality. The basic framework of the trans-empirical reality is: Different trans-empirical concepts + perceptual material, perceptual models → different scientific models (rational models) → different scientific realities (trans-empirical realities). In addition, this chapter presents the model of trans-empirical cognition: Pre-experience → pre-understanding → trans-empirical ideas → perceptual knowledge → trans-empirical concepts → rational knowledge → post-experience.

Abdulaziz D Alhaidari, Mourad E. H. Ismail

C. Vargas‐Hernández

Chloe Tully

The Counterintuitive Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: A Review of Ten Empirical Anomalies Scientific Review C J Tully Independent Researcher https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5661-7332 10th October 2026 Abstract Quantum mechanics (QM) constitutes the most empirically successful physical theory in the history of science, yet its foundational axioms systematically violate classical intuitions regarding locality, causality, determinism, and the independent reality of physical systems. This paper reviews ten of the most profound experimentally verified quantum phenomena: superposition, entanglement and non-locality, wave-particle complementarity, the uncertainty principle, quantum tunneling, the measurement problem, quantum vacuum fluctuations, quantum teleportation, the quantum Zeno effect, and decoherence. For each anomaly we present the relevant mathematical formalism within the Hilbert-space formulation, the decisive empirical evidence, and the residual conceptual tension with classical expectations. We conclude with a discussion of the ontological implications of a non-empty vacuum state in quantum field theory and the status of the measurement problem, arguing that these features are not paradoxes but constitutive elements of a fundamentally quantum reality. Keywords: quantum mechanics; superposition; entanglement; measurement problem; decoherence; quantum vacuum; Bell inequality