2004/01/12 by Jean-Michel Delhôtel, Jean-Michel Delhotel, Delhotel, Jean-Michel
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Philosophy and History of Science #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0401063
25 pages, no figures, final version
openalex publication_date 2004/01/12 · arxiv created 2014/10/27 · arxiv updated 2014/10/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Is quantum mechanics about 'states'? Or is it basically another kind of probability theory? It is argued that the elementary formalism of quantum mechanics operates as a well-justified alternative to 'classical' instantiations of a probability calculus. Its providing a general framework for prediction accounts for its distinctive traits, which one should be careful not to mistake for reflections of any strange ontology. The suggestion is also made that quantum theory unwittingly emerged, in Schroedinger's formulation, as a 'lossy' by-product of a quantum-mechanical variant of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. As it turns out, the effectiveness of quantum theory qua predictive algorithm makes up for the computational impracticability of that master equation.