\nThe\nproject aims to introduce a new way to look at quantum physics and\nits implications for the nature of reality. The inquiry will tackle\nfoundational questions such as “What is the origin of the\n‘quantumness’ of the world?” and “Do space and time have\nquantum connotations?”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These\nresearch questions will be investigated from a physical and a\nphilosophical standpoint by using unconventional analytical tools\nbased on the original ideas of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and\nthe physicist Ernst Mach. This Leibnizian\/Machian perspective on\nphysics maintains that the aptest description of a physical system\ndoes not involve anything external to that system. For example, the\nbest description of the dynamical evolution of a classical system of\nparticles is given in terms of their relative change of position and\nnot their motion in an external container space. This points to the\nfact that a physical system can be fully characterized in terms of\nhow its parts are related. The most notable consequence of this\napproach to physics is that common spatial and temporal notions, such\nas scale and duration, are not essential features of reality but,\nrather, vocabulary shortcuts to refer to how a physical system\nbehaves intrinsically. The critical observation underlying the\nproject is that any standard physical theory can, in principle, be\nrewritten in Leibnizian\/Machian terms. It is then interesting to\ninquire into how standard quantum theory’s picture of the world has\nto be revised when adopting a Leibnizian\/Machian perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe\ncrucial reason for attempting a Leibnizian\/Machian rewriting of the\nquantum formalism is to avoid or, at least, explain the “fuzziness”\nunderlying quantum physics. This fuzziness amounts to the fact that\nquantum systems do not seem to have pre-existing physical features\nrevealed by a measurement. On the contrary, these features depend on\nthe measurement context. Hence, it makes no sense to think of a\nquantum system as having, e.g., a definite position and momentum at\nonce<\/em>:\nPerforming a measurement of, say, momentum makes it meaningless to\nask what position the system had when such a measurement was\nperformed. This factual indeterminacy in quantum physics makes it\ndifficult to characterize how the world should look according to this\ntheoretical framework, not least because the quantum formalism does\nnot seem capable of explaining how the stable and determinate\nfeatures of our everyday reality appear out of such a fuzzy\nfundamental realm. This conceptual conundrum becomes even worse in\nthose theoretical programs that seek to quantize the spacetime\nstructure of the general theory of relativity. Indeed, what would be\nthe physical meaning of a quantum gravity theory, where space and\ntime disappear in a “quantum foam”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThe\nproject’s attempt at rewriting and re-interpreting quantum physics in\nLeibnizian\/Machian terms is expected to deliver a much clearer\npicture of reality. In a nutshell, the project will show that the\nphysical features that standard quantum physics renders fuzzy\n(including spatial and temporal structures) do not really exist but\nare just a “descriptive layer” added on top of a\nfundamental realm of reality made of physical entities that have no\nfeature whatsoever besides the relations they stand to one another.\nThis parsimonious ontology for the physical world will be arrived at\nby implementing an incremental strategy: Start with an “intuitive”\nclassical description of the world and progressively remove all the\nphysical features that can be reduced to relational facts from the\npicture. In the end, this strategy is expected to lead to a quantum\ngravity description containing the minimal information needed to\nreconstruct the phenomenology underlying the empirical realm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The project aims to introduce a new way to look at quantum physics and its implications for the nature of reality. The inquiry will tackle foundational questions such as “What is the origin of the ‘quantumness’ of the world?” and “Do space and time have quantum connotations?”. These research questions will be investigated from a … <\/p>\n