quantum mechanics: answers? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 11, 2013, 19:50 (3882 days ago) @ David Turell

Searching for answers. A new approach to old equations.-"Pawłowski and his colleagues have found that this postulate is respected by classical physics and by standard quantum mechanics, but not by alternative theories that allow for stronger forms of entanglement-like correlations between information-carrying particles. For that reason, the group writes in their paper, "information causality might be one of the foundational properties of nature" — in other words, an axiom of some future, reconstructed quantum theory. (my bold)-What is striking about several of these attempts at quantum reconstruction is that they suggest that the set of laws governing our Universe is just one of many mathematical possibilities. "It turns out that many principles lead to a whole class of probabilistic theories, and not specifically quantum theory," says Schlosshauer. This is in itself a valuable insight. "A lot of the features we think of as uniquely quantum," he says, "are actually generic to many probabilistic theories. This allows us to focus on the question of what makes quantum theory unique."-http://www.nature.com/news/physics-quantum-quest-1.13711?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130912