1998/05/30 by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, GIOVANNI AMELINO-CAMELIA · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1142/s0217732398001376
published as Mod.Phys.Lett. A13 (1998) 1319-1325 · 7 pages, Latex. (This essay received an ``honorable mention'' from the Gravity Research Foundation, 1998-Ed.)
openalex publication_date 1998/05/30 · arxiv created 1998/08/17 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quantum mechanics is revisited as the appropriate theoretical framework for the description of the outcome of experiments that rely on the use of classical devices. In particular, it is emphasized that the limitations on the measurability of (pairs of conjugate) observables encoded in the formalism of quantum mechanics reproduce faithfully the "classical-device limit" of the corresponding limitations encountered in (real or gedanken) experimental setups. It is then argued that devices cannot behave classically in quantum gravity, and that this might raise serious problems for the search of a class of experiments described by theories obtained by "applying quantum mechanics to gravity." It is also observed that using heuristic/intuitive arguments based on the absence of classical devices one is led to consider some candidate quantum gravity phenomena involving dimensionful deformations of the Poincaré symmetries.