Once considered essential to the explanation of electromagnetic phenomena, the ether was eventually discarded after the advent of special relativity. The lack of empirical signature of realist interpretative schemes of quantum mechanics, like Bohmian trajectories, has led some to conclude that, just like the ether, they can be dispensed with, replaced by the corresponding emergence of the conce...

Several situations, in which an empty wave causes an observable effect, are reviewed. They include an experiment showing “surrealistic trajectories” proposed by Englert et al. and protective measurement of the density of the quantum state. Conditions for observable effects due to empty waves are derived. The possibility (in spite of the existence of these examples) of minimalistic interpretatio...

The origin of quantum interference characteristic of bound nonlinear systems is investigated within the Bohmian formulation of time-dependent quantum mechanics. By contrast to time-dependent semiclassical theory, whereby interference is a consequence of phase mismatch between distinct classical trajectories, the Bohmian, fully quantum mechanical expression for expectation values has a quasiclas...

The quantum formalism is a \measurement" formalism|a phenomenological formalism describing certain macroscopic regularities. We argue that it can be regarded, and best be understood, as arising from Bohmian mechanics, which is what emerges from Schrr odinger's equation for a system of particles when we merely insist that \particles" means particles. While distinctly non-Newtonian, Bohmian mecha...

Two recent claims by A. Neumaier (quant-ph/0001011) and P. Ghose (quant-ph/0001024) that Bohmian mechanics is incompatible with quantum mechanics for correlations involving time are shown to be unfounded.

We consider a class of phase space measures, which naturally arise in the Bohmian interpretation of quantum mechanics (when written in a Lagrangian form). We study the so-called classical limit of these Bohmian measures, in dependence on the scale of oscillations and concentrations of the sequence of wave functions under consideration. The obtained results are consequently compared to those der...

We apply methods of quantum mechanics for mathematical modeling of price dynamics at the financial market. We propose to describe behavioral financial factors (e.g., expectations of traders) by using the pilot wave (Bohmian) model of quantum mechanics. Trajectories of prices are determined by two financial potentials: classical-like V (q) (”hard” market conditions, e.g., natural resources) and ...

In Bohmian mechanics, a version of quantum mechanics that ascribes world lines to electrons, we can meaningfully ask about an electron’s instantaneous speed relative to a given inertial frame. Interestingly, according to the relativistic version of Bohmian mechanics using the Dirac equation, a massive particle’s speed is less than or equal to the speed of light, but not necessarily less. That l...