Abstract The century-long Bohr–Einstein debate over the foundations of quantum mechanics appears to be an ontological dispute concerning whether physical reality exists objectively. In essence, however, it stems from the two sides implicitly adopting different hierarchical reference frames without explicit clarification. Based on the degree-of-freedom filtering framework, this paper proposes a hierarchical reference frame model. At the birth of quantum mechanics lies a fundamental reference-frame amnesia: the theory first defines eigenstates within the abstract Hilbert space, which mathematically refer to global possibilities without introducing any reference frame (Level 0). Nevertheless, concrete calculations rely on space-time reference frames to construct wave functions, and the superposition exhibited by the latter is then termed “quantum superposition”. The transition from toconstitutes a genuine, irreversible introduction of a reference frame, realizing a filtering mapping from to . Insufficient sampling rates in early experimental instruments statistically lent superficial support to this amnesia. Recent high-precision experiments gradually reveal that the so-called “superposition state” is largely an apparent phenomenon arising from limited measurement bandwidth. Within this model, Bohr’s “indeterminate state” requires dual judgment: his intention points to Level 0, yet his practical standpoint resides at Level 1. Einstein’s “determinate state” corresponds to physical states presupposing space-time as the reference frame. The century-long arguments surrounding the EPR paradox and Bell inequalities are essentially deepened manifestations of this hierarchical confusion. This paper further demonstrates that the framework offers a unified account of the measurement problem, wave–particle duality, the Fourier limit relation and quantum Zeno effect, delayed-choice experiments, quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling, and other phenomena. Without introducing extra dimensions or parallel worlds, the framework merely elevates “reference frame” from a background assumption to a core variable, providing a self-consistent, intuitive and unified epistemological foundation for the foundations of quantum mechanics.
Abstract The century-long Bohr–Einstein debate over the foundations of quantum mechanics appears to be an ontological dispute concerning whether physical reality exists objectively. In essence, however, it stems from the two sides implicitly adopting different hierarchical reference frames without explicit clarification. Based on the degree-of-freedom filtering framework, this paper proposes a hierarchical reference frame model. At the birth of quantum mechanics lies a fundamental reference-frame amnesia: the theory first defines eigenstates within the abstract Hilbert space, which mathematically refer to global possibilities without introducing any reference frame (Level 0). Nevertheless, concrete calculations rely on space-time reference frames to construct wave functions, and the superposition exhibited by the latter is then termed “quantum superposition”. The transition from toconstitutes a genuine, irreversible introduction of a reference frame, realizing a filtering mapping from to . Insufficient sampling rates in early experimental instruments statistically lent superficial support to this amnesia. Recent high-precision experiments gradually reveal that the so-called “superposition state” is largely an apparent phenomenon arising from limited measurement bandwidth. Within this model, Bohr’s “indeterminate state” requires dual judgment: his intention points to Level 0, yet his practical standpoint resides at Level 1. Einstein’s “determinate state” corresponds to physical states presupposing space-time as the reference frame. The century-long arguments surrounding the EPR paradox and Bell inequalities are essentially deepened manifestations of this hierarchical confusion. This paper further demonstrates that the framework offers a unified account of the measurement problem, wave–particle duality, the Fourier limit relation and quantum Zeno effect, delayed-choice experiments, quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling, and other phenomena. Without introducing extra dimensions or parallel worlds, the framework merely elevates “reference frame” from a background assumption to a core variable, providing a self-consistent, intuitive and unified epistemological foundation for the foundations of quantum mechanics.
Abstract Fundamental discrepancies exist among the foundational postulates of classical mechanics, relativity and quantum mechanics, leaving long-standing open physical puzzles including the origin of the arrow of time, quantum measurement collapse and the nature of spacetime. This paper proposes a self-consistent unified physical paradigm: the physical essence of a reference frame is the selective filtering of the full degrees of freedom of a system. All classical, relativistic and quantum physical theories constitute effective reduced descriptions of degrees of freedom under specific rules imposed by reference frames. Core phenomena such as temporal irreversibility, wave-function collapse, the constancy of the speed of light and the quantum-classical transition are not fundamental ontological properties of the universe, but emergent effects arising from filtering mappings introduced by finite-bandwidth observers. This work establishes an axiomatic framework for reference frames and degree-of-freedom filtering, defining projection filtering mappings, the principle of vanishing relative degrees of freedom, and the dimensionless filtering ratio. Within this framework, we reconstruct classical mechanics, special and general relativity, quantum decoherence and quantum measurement theory. Three categories of irreversible mechanisms — statistical coarse-graining, environmental partial-trace decoherence and time-domain sampling truncation — are integrated into a single mathematical structure. A universal dimensionless filtering ratio is defined. We clarify that the continuity of the control parameter does not imply that observables must evolve smoothly. Conceptually, the system can exhibit three regimes: quantum superposition, intermediate transition and classical state. Experiments on quantum bits at the Weizmann Institute provide preliminary observational hints, yet further verification is required; no specific form of the response curve is assumed in this paper. Three falsifiable quantitative predictions are put forward, involving attosecond spectroscopy, decoherence of superconducting qubits and cold-atom interferometry. We compare the present paradigm with relational quantum mechanics, QBism and consistent histories, discuss the ontological implications of time, observers and irreversibility, and outline extensions towards quantum gravity and cognitive science.
Lying at the heart of quantum mechanics, the notion of quantum superposition causes enormous difficulty in understanding the problem of quantum measurement, which concerns the Einstein-Bohr debate on the conceptual foundations of the quantum theory. According to Bell’s theorem, Einstein’s viewpoint in his debate with Bohr seems to be wrong. In the present paper, a new principle (referred to as the general principle of measurements) is introduced and proved as a mathematical theorem. Based on this principle, various forms of quantum superposition (including quantum entanglement) and the corresponding experiments are scrutinized. The main findings are as follows. (a) Einstein’s viewpoint is correct and Bell’s theorem is problematic. (b) Measurement outcomes of any actual experiment with individual microscopic objects described in a form of quantum superposition, in particular, the experimental results of testing Bell inequalities, are all erroneously explained. (c) Bell inequalities failed to capture the essence of the Einstein-Bohr debate, i.e., whether quantum superposition is legitimate for describing individual microscopic objects. (d) All kinds of quantum superposition violate the general principle of measurements and hence are illegitimate. (e) Quantum mechanics can be completed by using disjunction (“or”) as the logical relation between the orthonormal vectors that span an arbitrarily given Hilbert space for describing a single microscopic object, and the mathematical setting will remain essentially unchanged; hidden-variable theories are irrelevant to the real world. (f) After completing quantum mechanics as above, the difficulty in understanding the problem of quantum measurement disappears naturally. Implications of the findings are also discussed.
The EPR controversy between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr about the completeness of the quantum mechanics is one of the most essential contemporary debates in physics with respect to the issue of realism. Initially considered as a though-experiment, the EPR paradox was meant to evidence the inadequacy of quantum mechanics with respect to the traditional leading principle of physics such as locality, independence of the system elements of reality with respect to the observer or semantic reference of theories to elements of the reality in itself. Bell’s mathematical inquiry opened the possibility to empirically discriminate between the view of Bohr and Einstein through the so-called Bell’s inequalities. Based on these inequalities, the experimental test provided in particular by the work of Alain Aspect settled the debate in favor of Bohr and the completeness of quantum mechanics. The previously evident assumption that physical theories are describing the reality in it-self can thus be questioned. Several approaches have been proposed to face that challenge, such as the orthodox quantum physics formulation coupled with the interpretation of Bernard d’Espagnat , the non-local theory of De Broglie-Bohm or the quantum mechanics approach with extended probability of James B. Hartle . In this paper, we consider the idea according to which the field of experiments and measurements on quantum systems is a research context where several epistemic values traditionally leading the scientific activity are in conflict. Instead of conceiving the transition from classical to quantum physics along Thomas Kuhns’ theory of revolutionary paradigm change , characterized by a strong incommensurability between the old and the new approaches, we argue that this epistemological shift could be rationally understood as an incremental evolution of the epistemic values leading scientific activity. As the analysis in this paper aims to show, such a rational reconstruction shows a process of gradual change, where core epistemic values are maintained, while others are broadened to account for the new scientific approaches. The settling of the EPR controversy could be understood as the indication that the previously assumed epistemic values cannot be consistently held together in the quantum context. The values of logical consistency and empirical adequacy remained universally shared, but the controversy leads to question the other traditionally admitted principles, such as the locality, the requirement of semantic references to the reality in itself and the independence of experimental results with respect to the observer, all tightly connected with the realistic conceptions of the world. This first part of the paper characterizes the selected contemporary approaches in quantum context with respect to the modification of the epistemic principles they adopt to restore their consistency. While the de Broglie-Bohm theory explicitly follows the requirement of referring to the reality in itself at the expense of the locality principle, the approaches of d’Espagnat and of Hartle give priority to the values of theoretical framework simplicity and predictive power. In the case of d’Espagnat, the descriptive purpose of the scientific activity remains, but only in a weak objectivity perspective, restricted to the “empirical reality” in which the observer is involved. In the case of Hartle, the extended probability formulation of quantum mechanics is conceived as “an extension of familiar probability theory that incorporates negative probabilities”6, which relies on the Bayesian conception of “probabilities as instruction for betting” (negative probability is thus associated to the instruction “don’t bet”). In a second part, the paper uses this reconstruction of the various theories in order to address the epistemic status of the principles of descriptive power and of independence of the observed system with respect to the observer. In particular, our analysis aims to assess if a reference to the observer is part of the reality description or if such reference is avoidable. This is of prior interest in exploring the main characteristics of a realistic approach that would be applicable in the context of experiments and measurements on quantum systems. In that perspective, we argue that the direct holistic realism, developed by Hilary Putnam in The Threefold Cord , could be a promising intermediate option between a classical realism, which assumes that theoretical structures are describing the reality in it-self, and a more instrumentalist view, focusing mainly on the modeling of the empirical reality as a result of experimental operations while rejecting access to the reality in itself.
Abstract The transition from microscopic reversible dynamics to macroscopic irreversible thermodynamics in statistical mechanics, the transformation from pure states to mixed states during quantum decoherence, and the transition from quantum superposition states to classical definite states in quantum measurement have long been regarded as three independent fundamental physical puzzles. This paper demonstrates that the three processes share a unified mathematical root: the filtering, truncation or projection of system degrees of freedom renders the information carried by partial degrees of freedom unreconstructable within the reduced description framework, and irreversibility spontaneously emerges in the remaining description space. Based on the rigorous derivation of Hilbert’s sixth problem proposed by Deng et al., Zurek’s environment-induced decoherence theory, and the three-stage model of temporal relativity proposed by the author, this paper extracts the mathematical structure of the three types of physical processes and constructs an axiomatic unified framework. This paper further clarifies that various filtering operations are essentially equivalent to the selection of reference frames by the observation system; any descriptive subject with finite information bandwidth must select a reference benchmark, and the arrow of time is an emergent characteristic of this selection behavior under reduced description. This paper distinguishes between global information conservation and local unreconstructable information, emphasizing that the theoretical framework does not violate unitary quantum evolution, and proposes quantitative predictions verifiable by attosecond physics and superconducting quantum experiments.
Bell’s inequality is derived by resorting to a hidden-variable theory devised for resolving the Einstein-Bohr debate on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. The legitimacy of quantum superposition for describing the physical world is the essence of the debate. Einstein argued against the legitimacy of quantum superposition. Testing Bell’s inequality by experiments with the experimental result explained by Bell’s theorem opened the door to so-called quantum information technologies. In quantum information theory, “quantum bit” (or “qubit” for short) in a form of quantum superposition is supposed to carry quantum information. In the present paper, a new principle, the general principle of measurements, has been proved as a mathematical theorem. Based on this principle, the experiment for testing Bell’s inequality and so-called experimental evidence for physically realizable “qubit” have been scrutinized. The findings are as follows. Although most physicists believe that Einstein’s vision of the physical world contradicts the experimental result of testing Bell’s inequality, neither the experimental result nor Bell’s theorem is relevant to Einstein’s viewpoint, because Bell’s inequality failed to capture the essence of the Einstein-Bohr debate. The experimental result and the measurement outcomes of various experiments involving “qubit” are all erroneously explained. Quantum mechanics can be completed by using disjunction (“or”) as the logical relation between the orthonormal vectors that span an arbitrarily given Hilbert space without resorting to any hidden-variable theory, while the mathematical setting will remain essentially unchanged. All kinds of “qubit” violate the general principle of measurements and can only describe imaginary objects that do not exist in the real world. A very regrettable conclusion from the above findings is inevitable: All quantum information technologies are not physically realizable, because quantum information has no physical carriers.
Bell’s inequality is derived by resorting to a hidden-variable theory devised for resolving the Einstein-Bohr debate on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. The legitimacy of quantum superposition for describing the physical world is the essence of the debate. Einstein argued against the legitimacy of quantum superposition. Testing Bell’s inequality by experiments with the experimental results explained by Bell’s theorem opened the door to so-called quantum information technologies. In quantum information theory, “quantum bit” (or “qubit” for short) in a form of quantum superposition is supposed to represent quantum information. In the present paper, a new principle, the general principle of measurements, is introduced and proved as a mathematical theorem. Based on this principle, the experiments for testing Bell’s inequality and so-called experimental evidence for physically realizable “qubit” are scrutinized. The findings are as follows. Although most physicists believe that Einstein’s vision of the physical world contradicts the experimental results of testing Bell’s inequality, actually Einstein’s viewpoint is irrelevant to Bell’s theorem. Bell’s inequality failed to capture the essence of the Einstein-Bohr debate. The experimental results of testing Bell’s inequality and the measurement outcomes of various experiments involving “qubit” are all erroneously explained. Without involving hidden variables, quantum mechanics can be completed based on the general principle of measurements by using disjunction (“or”) as the logical relation between the orthonormal vectors that span an arbitrarily given Hilbert space, and the mathematical setting can remain essentially unchanged. All kinds of “qubit” violate the general principle of measurements and can only describe imaginary objects that do not exist in the real world. A very regrettable conclusion from the above findings is inevitable: Quantum information has no physical carriers, and all quantum information technologies are not physically realizable.