A principle of quantumness

Abstract

Quantum correlations and other phenomena characteristic to a quantum world can be understood as simply consequences of a principle derived from the postulates of Quantum Mechanics. This explanatory principle states that these phenomena specific to the quantum world are caused by the tension between the constraints, or initial conditions, imposed by incompatible observations. This tension is found to be at the root of Bohr's complementarity, Heisenberg's uncertainty, results concerning nonlocality, contextuality, quantum correlations in time and space. This tension requires the presence of noncommuting observables, but noncommutativity doesn't always lead to the tension, and the two concepts are not exactly the same, as it will be explained and exemplified.

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References in corpus (7)

• Hidden Variables and the Two Theorems of John Bell
• A convergent hierarchy of semidefinite programs characterizing the set of quantum correlations
• A simple test for hidden variables in spin-1 system
• Bounding the set of quantum correlations
• Experimental violation of a Bell inequality with two different degrees of freedom of entangled particle pairs
• Global and local aspects of causality in quantum mechanics
• Some Negative Remarks on Operational Approaches to Quantum Theory