Quantum foundations concerns the conceptual and mathematical underpinnings of quantum theory. In particular, we search for novel quantum effects, consider how to interpret the formalism, ask where the formalism comes from, and how we might modify it. Research at Perimeter Institute is particularly concerned with reconstructing quantum theory from more natural postulates and reformulating the theory in ways that elucidate its conceptual structure. Research in the foundations of quantum theory naturally interfaces with research in quantum information and quantum gravity.
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Format results
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Science Communication Platform
Adam Becker , Gabriel Fitzpatrick
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Building the Cathedral of Quantum Mechanics
Michel Janssen
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Von Neumann, (re-)constructions and hidden variables
Guido Bacciagaluppi
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Classical mechanics as the high-entropy limit of quantum mechanics
Gabriele Carcassi - University of Michigan
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The contextual Heisenberg Microscope
Jan-Åke Larsson - Linköping University
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Bohr and Heisenberg: Debate on the Gamma-Ray Microscope
Noemi Bolzonetti - Utrecht University
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Reconstructing the Quantum World
Patrick Fraser - University of Toronto
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Probabilistic theories: a brief history and prospectus
Alexander Wilce - Susquehanna University
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Geometric reconstruction of quantum theory
Nicolás Medina Sánchez - University of Vienna
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Einstein, Schrödinger, and the Birth of Wave Mechanics
Don Howard
This talk will explore an underappreciated chapter in the history of the development of wave mechanics. It focuses upon the interactions between Einstein and Schrödinger in the wake of Einstein’s promotion of Bose’s new derivation of the Planck formula for the energy distribution of black-body… -
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Building the Cathedral of Quantum Mechanics
Michel Janssen
The upheaval in quantum theory in the mid-1920s is often presented as a Kuhnian paradigm shift. The new quantum mechanics, to use a building metaphor, was erected on the ruins of the old quantum theory, brought down by an accumulation of anomalies. In our book Constructing Quantum Mechanics (2019… -
Von Neumann, (re-)constructions and hidden variables
Guido Bacciagaluppi
I claim that the idea of "reconstructing" quantum mechanics along the lines of quantum probability was there from the beginning of the theory as we know it, in von Neumann's paper "Probabilistic construction of quantum mechanics". In this paper, von Neumann derives (and often introduces for the… -
Classical mechanics as the high-entropy limit of quantum mechanics
Gabriele Carcassi - University of Michigan
We show that classical mechanics can be recovered as the high-entropy limit of quantum mechanics. The mathematical limit $\hbar \to 0$ can be recovered by decreasing entropy of pure states to minus infinity, in the same way that non-relativistic mechanics can be recovered mathematically by… -
The contextual Heisenberg Microscope
Jan-Åke Larsson - Linköping University
The Heisenberg microscope provides a powerful mental image of the measurement process of quantum mechanics (QM), attempting to explain the uncertainty relation through an uncontrollable back-action from the measurement device. However, Heisenberg's proposed back-action uses features that are not… -
Bohr and Heisenberg: Debate on the Gamma-Ray Microscope
Noemi Bolzonetti - Utrecht University
On March 27th, 1927, Heisenberg published the paper in which he introduced the uncertainty relations through his well-known $\gamma$-ray microscope thought experiment. Since then, the debates and commentaries over the origin of the uncertainty relations have continued for a century (see, for… -
Classical Logic and Quantum Properties
Michael Miller
We articulate a collection of desiderata for an account of the dynamical quantities of a physical theory, and we present a theory that meets these desiderata in the case of quantum mechanics. Our theory retains a distinction between the values of dynamical quantities and the truth values of… -
Reconstructing the Quantum World
Patrick Fraser - University of Toronto
Since its inception, the quantum theory has been fraught with interpretive challenges. It has often been complained that the physical content of the theory is obscured by the mathematical resources used to articulate it. In recent decades, many have sought to reorganize the conceptual resources of… -
Probabilistic theories: a brief history and prospectus
Alexander Wilce - Susquehanna University
See attached pdf -
Geometric reconstruction of quantum theory
Nicolás Medina Sánchez - University of Vienna
We ask why finite-dimensional quantum states can be represented as mixtures of pure states on complex projective space, with reversible transitions given by unitary transformations up to phase. We derive this from two principles. First, determinism of probabilities: the evolution on the state space… -
A Brief Prehistory of Qubits
Ben Schumacher
Wernher von Braun is supposed to have said, "Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." The path to a new idea is seldom straight, and travelers seldom know what their actual destination will be. I intend to illustrate all this by describing the origin of the word "qubit" and the…