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115Contextuality and Nonlocality in 'No Signaling' TheoriesFoundations of Physics 39 (7): 690-711. 2009.We define a family of ‘no signaling’ bipartite boxes with arbitrary inputs and binary outputs, and with a range of marginal probabilities. The defining correlations are motivated by the Klyachko version of the Kochen-Specker theorem, so we call these boxes Kochen-Specker-Klyachko boxes or, briefly, KS-boxes. The marginals cover a variety of cases, from those that can be simulated classically to the superquantum correlations that saturate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, when the KS-box…Read more
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43Quantum Computation: Where Does the Speed-up Come From?In Alisa Bokulich & Gregg Jaeger (eds.), Philosophy of quantum information and entanglement, Cambridge University Press. pp. 231--246. 2010.
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37Poincaré's “Les conceptions nouvelles de la matière”Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (4): 221-225. 2012.We present a translation of Poincaré's hitherto untranslated 1912 essay together with a brief introduction describing the essay's contemporary interest, both for Poincaré scholarship and for the history and philosophy of atomism. In the introduction we distinguish two easily conflated strands in Poincaré's thinking about atomism, one focused on the possibility of deciding the atomic hypothesis, the other focused on the question whether it can ever be determined that the analysis of matter has a …Read more
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17On the completeness of quantum mechanicsIn C. A. Hooker (ed.), Contemporary Research in the Foundations and Philosophy of Quantum Theory, D. Reidel. pp. 1--65. 1973.
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143Maxwell's Demon and the Thermodynamics of ComputationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32 (4): 569-579. 2001.It is generally accepted, following Landauer and Bennett, that the process of measurement involves no minimum entropy cost, but the erasure of information in resetting the memory register of a computer to zero requires dissipating heat into the environment. This thesis has been challenged recently in a two-part article by Earman and Norton. I review some relevant observations in the thermodynamics of computation and argue that Earman and Norton are mistaken: there is in principle no entropy cost…Read more
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The Interpretation of Quantum MechanicsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 295-297. 1976.
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66Is cognitive neuropsychology possible?Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 1 417-427. 1994.The aim of cognitive neuropsychology is to articulate the functional architecture underlying normal cognition, on the basis of cognitive performance data involving brain-damaged subjects. Glymour (forthcoming) formulates a discovery problem for cognitive neuropsychology, in the sense of formal learning theory, concerning the existence of a reliable methodology, and argues that the problem is insoluble: granted certain apparently plausible assumptions about the form of neuropsychological theories…Read more
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8Review of Jeffrey Bub: Interpreting the Quantum World (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (4): 637-641. 1998.
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1What’s the deal with the really, really, weird-acting stuff that everything is made of? Can we ever take in our everyday world the same way again if we fully understand the nature of the quantum world? With Jeffrey Bub , Tim Maudlin , and Drew Arrowood
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45How to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanicsFoundations of Physics 18 (7): 701-722. 1988.A solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics is proposed within the framework of an intepretation according to which only quantum systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom have determinate properties, i.e., determinate values for (some) observables of the theory. The important feature of the infinite case is the existence of many inequivalent irreducible Hilbert space representations of the algebra of observables, which leads, in effect, to a restriction on the superpos…Read more
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205Quantum Mechanics is About Quantum InformationFoundations of Physics 35 (4): 541-560. 2005.I argue that quantum mechanics is fundamentally a theory about the representation and manipulation of information, not a theory about the mechanics of nonclassical waves or particles. The notion of quantum information is to be understood as a new physical primitive—just as, following Einstein’s special theory of relativity, a field is no longer regarded as the physical manifestation of vibrations in a mechanical medium, but recognized as a new physical primitive in its own right.
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41Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (3): 539-552. 1985.
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26Von Neumann’s Theory of Quantum MeasurementVienna Circle Institute Yearbook 8 63-74. 2001.In a series of lectures written around 1952, Schrödinger refers to von Neumann’s account of measurement in quantum mechanics as follows:I said quantum physicists bother very little about accounting, according to the accepted law, for the supposed change of the wave-function by measurement. I know of only one attempt in this direction, to which Dr. Balazs recently directed my attention. You find it in John von Neumann’s well-known book. With great acuity he constructs one analytical example. It d…Read more
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3The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: An Interactive Interpretation. Richard HealeyIsis 82 (3): 606-607. 1991.
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53Itamar Pitowsky 1950–2010Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (2): 85-. 2010.
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108Schütte's tautology and the Kochen-Specker theoremFoundations of Physics 26 (6): 787-806. 1996.I present a new 33-ray proof of the Kochen and Specker “no-go” hidden variable theorem in ℋ3, based on a classical tautology that corresponds to a contingent quantum proposition in ℋ3 proposed by Kurt Schütte in an unpublished letter to Specker in 1965. 1 discuss the relation of this proof to a 31-ray proof by Conway and Kochen, and to a 33-ray proof by Peres
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58On local realism and commutativityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (4): 863-878. 2007.
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16IntroductionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (3): 339-341. 2003.
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110EprFoundations of Physics 22 (3): 313-332. 1992.We present an exegesis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, and defend it against the critique in Fine. (1) We contend,contra Fine, that it compares favorably with an argument reconstructed by him from a letter by Einstein to Schrödinger; and also with one given by Einstein in a letter to Popper. All three arguments turn on a dubious assumption of “separability,” which accords separate elements of reality to space-like separated systems. We discuss…Read more
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106On the possibility of a phase-space reconstruction of quantum statistics: A refutation of the Bell-Wigner locality argument (review)Foundations of Physics 3 (1): 29-44. 1973.J. S. Bell's argument that only “nonlocal” hidden variable theories can reproduce the quantum statistical correlations of the singlet spin state in the case of two separated spin-1/2 particles is examined in terms of Wigner's formulation. It is shown that a similar argument applies to a single spin-1/2 particle, and that the exclusion of hidden variables depends on an obviously untenable assumption concerning conditional probabilities. The problem of completeness is discussed briefly, and the gr…Read more
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59Under the spell of Bohr (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24 (1): 78-90. 1973.
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102Miller's paradox of informationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (1): 63-67. 1968.
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244Testing models of cognition through the analysis of brain-damaged patientsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (3): 837-55. 1994.The aim of cognitive neuropsychology is to articulate the functional architecture underlying normal cognition, on the basis of congnitive performance data involving brain-damaged subjects. Throughout the history of the subject, questions have been raised as to whether the methods of neuropsychology are adequate to its goals. The question has been reopened by Glymour [1994], who formulates a discovery problem for cognitive neuropsychology, in the sense of formal learning theory, concerning the ex…Read more
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102Interference, noncommutativity, and determinateness in quantum mechanicsTopoi 14 (1): 39-43. 1995.I consider to what extent the phenomenon of interference precludes the possibility of attributing simultaneously determinate values to noncommuting observables, and I show that, while all observables can in principle be taken as simultaneously determinate, it suffices to take a suitable privileged observable as determinate to solve the measurement problem.
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6Review: Under the Spell of Bohr (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24 (1). 1973.
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