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Birkhäuser Boston eBooks

Principles

David Wick

Published Jan 1, 1995• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

What are the principles of quantum mechanics? Since 1925, proponents of various interpretations have championed theirs, while doubters have searched for new ones. Principles, therefore, are important — but what do we mean by a “principle” when talking about a scientific theory? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

DOI
10.1007/978-1-4612-5361-7_18

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What are the principles of quantum mechanics? Since 1925, proponents of various interpretations have championed theirs, while doubters have searched for new ones. Principles, therefore, are important — but what do we mean by a “principle” when talking about a scientific theory? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its core concepts (amplitudes, global phases, etc.) can not be directly accessed and its interpretation is still the subject of intense debate, more than 100 years since it was introduced. So, a fundamental question is why this particular mathematical model is the one that nature chooses, if indeed it is the correct model. In the past two decades there has been a renewed effort to determine what physical or informational principles define quantum mechanics. In this paper, recent attempts at establishing reasonable physical principles are reviewed and their degree of success is tabulated. An alternative approach using joint quasi-probability distributions is shown to provide a common basis of representing most of the proposed principles. It is argued that having a common representation of the principles can provide intuition and guidance to relate current principles or advance new principles. The current state of affairs, along with some alternative views are discussed.