Wigner’s friend and Relational Quantum Mechanics: A Reply to Laudisa

Relational Quantum Mechanics

Relational Quantum Mechanics

In this internship report, we present Carlo Rovelli’s relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, focusing on its historical and conceptual roots. A critical analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument is then put forward, which suggests that the phenomenon of ‘quantum non-locality’ is an artifact of the orthodox interpretation, and not a physical effect. A speculative discussion of th...

Can quantum cryptography imply quantum mechanics? reply to Smolin

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 ...

Reply to No Contradictions between Bohmian and quantum mechanics

When these are substituted into his equation (17), the right hand side of his equation (18) vanishes. What Marchildon’s calculations have, in fact, established is that the assumption of translation invariance (Fraunhoffer diffraction and plane waves) imposed by me in my papers are sufficient but not necessary to obtain the basic result, namely that the trajectories are symmetrical at all times ...

Relational Quantum Mechanics and the Determinacy Problem∗

Quantum mechanics describes certain systems as being in superpositions of their properties, yet every measurement on every system that we are able to perform yields a determinate result. The “orthodox” formulation of the theory builds this in by including a postulate that such superpositions “collapse” at the time of measurement. This strategy fails to really explain why such measurements are d...