No return to classical reality
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Published version
Author(s)
Jennings, D
Leifer, M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
At a fundamental level, the classical picture of the world is dead, and has been dead now for almost a century. Pinning down exactly which quantum phenomena are responsible for this has proved to be a tricky and controversial question, but a lot of progress has been made in the past few decades. We now have a range of precise statements showing that whatever the ultimate laws of nature are, they cannot be classical. In this article, we review results on the fundamental phenomena of quantum theory that cannot be understood in classical terms. We proceed by first granting quite a broad notion of classicality, describe a range of quantum phenomena (such as randomness, discreteness, the indistinguishability of states, measurement-uncertainty, measurement-disturbance, complementarity, non-commutativity, interference, the no-cloning theorem and the collapse of the wave-packet) that do fall under its liberal scope, and then finally describe some aspects of quantum physics that can never admit a classical understanding – the intrinsically quantum mechanical aspects of nature. The most famous of these is Bell’s theorem, but we also review two more recent results in this area. Firstly, Hardy’s theorem shows that even a finite-dimensional quantum system must contain an infinite amount of information, and secondly, the Pusey–Barrett–Rudolph theorem shows that the wave function must be an objective property of an individual quantum system. Besides being of foundational interest, results of this sort now find surprising practical applications in areas such as quantum information science and the simulation of quantum systems.
Date Issued
2015-07-31
Date Acceptance
2015-06-03
Citation
Contemporary Physics, 2015, 57 (1), pp.60-82
ISSN
0010-7514
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Start Page
60
End Page
82
Journal / Book Title
Contemporary Physics
Volume
57
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2015 Taylor & Francis. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Contemporary Physics on 31 Jul 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00107514.2015.1063233
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000371036500004&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Physics
statistical theories
quantum state
wavefunction
quantum foundations
nonclassicality
HIDDEN-VARIABLE THEORIES
QUANTUM MECHANICS
OPERATOR METHODS
INFORMATION
EINSTEIN
STATE
TRANSFORMATIONS
COMMUNICATION
NONLOCALITY
Publication Status
Published