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Glossary Of Quantum Philosophy
This is a glossary for the terminology applied in the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum metaphysics, collectively called ''quantum philosophy'', a subfield of philosophy of physics. Note that this is a highly debated field, hence different researchers may have different definitions on the terms. Physics Non-classical properties of quantum mechanics ; nonseparability : See also: Quantum entanglement, entangled ; Quantum nonlocality, Nonlocality ; Superposition principle, Superposition of states : See also: Schrödinger's cat Quantum phenomena ; decoherence ; uncertainty principle : See also: Einstein's thought experiments#Quantum mechanics, Einstein and the quantum ; Quantum entanglement, entanglement : See also: Bell's theorem, EPR paradox and CHSH inequality ; quantum teleportation ; superselection rule ; quantum erasure ; delayed choice experiment ; Quantum Zeno effect ; premeasurement ; ideal measurement Suggested physical entities ; hidden variable theor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glossary
A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''glossa''; language, speech, wording) also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of Term (language), terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms. A bilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language defined in a second language or Gloss (annotation), glossed by synonyms (or at least near-synonyms) in another language. In a general sense, a glossary contains explanations of concepts relevant to a certain field of study or action. In this sense, the term is related to the notion of ontology. Automatic methods have been also provided that transform a glossary into an ontology or a computational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delayed Choice Experiment
Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment describes a family of thought experiments in quantum physics proposed by John Archibald Wheeler, with the most prominent among them appearing in 1978 and 1984. These experiments are attempts to decide whether light somehow "senses" the experimental apparatus in the double-slit experiment it travels through, adjusting its behavior to fit by assuming the appropriate determinate state for it, or whether light remains in an indeterminate state, exhibiting both wave-like and particle-like behavior until measured. The common intention of these several types of experiments is to first do something that, according to some hidden-variable models, would make each photon "decide" whether it was going to behave as a particle or behave as a wave, and then, before the photon had time to reach the detection device, create another change in the system that would make it seem that the photon had "chosen" to behave in the opposite way. Some interpreters of these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on ''a priori'' reasoning, intuition, or r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such a basic concept, it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it. Accordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Determinism
Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. The opposite of determinism is some kind of indeterminism (otherwise called nondeterminism) or randomness. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible.For example, see Determinism is often used to mean ''causal determinism'', which in physics is known as cause-and-effect. This is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state of an object or event is completely determined by its prior states. This meaning can be distinguished from other varieties of determinism mentioned below. Debates about determinism often concern the scope of determined systems; some maintain that the entire universe is a single determina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Realism
Philosophical realism is usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters. Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has ''mind-independent existence'', i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely. Realism can also be a view about the properties of reality in general, holding that reality exists independent of the mind, as opposed to non-realist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agnostic
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist." The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word ''agnostic'' in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife;Bhaskar (1972). and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods". Defining agnosticism Being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnostic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontic
In ontology, ontic (from the Greek , genitive : "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence. In more nuance, it means that which concerns particular, individuated beings rather than their modes of being; the present, actual thing in relation to the virtual, generalized dimension which makes that thing what it " is". An example includes the particular person and their actions, and the cultural background to which these actions bear relation and derive meaning from, the former being ontic (located in physicality), the latter ontological (located in virtuality). Overview ''Ontic'' describes what is there, as opposed to the nature or properties of that being. To illustrate : *Roger Bacon, observing that all languages are built upon a common grammar, stated that they share a foundation of ontically anchored linguistic structures. *Martin Heidegger posited the concept of ''Sorge'', or caring, as the fundamental concept of the intentional being, and presupposed an ont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decoherent Histories
In quantum mechanics, the consistent histories (also referred to as decoherent histories) approach is intended to give a modern interpretation of quantum mechanics, generalising the conventional Copenhagen interpretation and providing a natural interpretation of quantum cosmology. This interpretation of quantum mechanics is based on a consistency criterion that then allows probabilities to be assigned to various alternative histories of a system such that the probabilities for each history obey the rules of classical probability while being consistent with the Schrödinger equation. In contrast to some interpretations of quantum mechanics, particularly the Copenhagen interpretation, the framework does not include "wavefunction collapse" as a relevant description of any physical process, and emphasizes that measurement theory is not a fundamental ingredient of quantum mechanics. Histories A ''homogeneous history'' H_i (here i labels different histories) is a sequence of Propositio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Measurement
In quantum physics, a measurement is the testing or manipulation of a physical system to yield a numerical result. The predictions that quantum physics makes are in general probabilistic. The mathematical tools for making predictions about what measurement outcomes may occur were developed during the 20th century and make use of linear algebra and functional analysis. Quantum physics has proven to be an empirical success and to have wide-ranging applicability. However, on a more philosophical level, debates continue about the meaning of the measurement concept. Mathematical formalism "Observables" as self-adjoint operators In quantum mechanics, each physical system is associated with a Hilbert space, each element of which represents a possible state of the physical system. The approach codified by John von Neumann represents a measurement upon a physical system by a self-adjoint operator on that Hilbert space termed an "observable". These observables play the role of measurab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collapse Postulate
In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse occurs when a wave function—initially in a superposition of several eigenstates—reduces to a single eigenstate due to interaction with the external world. This interaction is called an ''observation'', and is the essence of a measurement in quantum mechanics, which connects the wave function with classical observables such as position and momentum. Collapse is one of the two processes by which quantum systems evolve in time; the other is the continuous evolution governed by the Schrödinger equation. : Collapse is a black box for a thermodynamically irreversible interaction with a classical environment. Calculations of quantum decoherence show that when a quantum system interacts with the environment, the superpositions ''apparently'' reduce to mixtures of classical alternatives. Significantly, the combined wave function of the system and environment continue to obey the Schrödinger equation throughout this ''apparent'' collap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Born's Rule
The Born rule (also called Born's rule) is a key postulate of quantum mechanics which gives the probability that a measurement of a quantum system will yield a given result. In its simplest form, it states that the probability density of finding a system in a given state, when measured, is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the system's wavefunction at that state. It was formulated by German physicist Max Born in 1926. Details The Born rule states that if an observable corresponding to a self-adjoint operator A with discrete spectrum is measured in a system with normalized wave function , \psi\rang (see Bra–ket notation), then: * the measured result will be one of the eigenvalues \lambda of A, and * the probability of measuring a given eigenvalue \lambda_i will equal \lang\psi, P_i, \psi\rang, where P_i is the projection onto the eigenspace of A corresponding to \lambda_i. : (In the case where the eigenspace of A corresponding to \lambda_i is one-dimensional and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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