"If relativity is about the geometrical structure of space-time, what is quantum mechanics about? There are a surprising variety of answers to this question: that quantum mechanics is about energy being quantized in discrete lumps or quanta, or about particles being wavelike, or about the universe continually splitting into countless co-existing quasi-classical universes, with many copies of ourselves, and so on. A rather more mundane answer, with quite remarkable implications, has emerged over the past thirty years or so from the study of the difference between classical information and quantum information: quantum mechanics is about new sorts of probabilistic correlations in nature, so about the structure of information, insofar as a theory of information in the sense relevant to physics is essentially a theory of probabilistic correlations."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Jeffrey Bub, Bananaworld: Quantum Mechanics for Primates (2015), Ch. 1 : Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Quantum mechanics
70 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Quantum mechanics →
Related Quotes
"We cannot make apparatuses arbitrarily big. ... We might need some extension of quantum mechanics."
"Christian Imbert, to support my project and to act as my thesis advisor. He had advised me to go first to Geneva, to …"
"Quantum mechanics was, and continues to be, revolutionary, primarily because it demands the introduction of radically…"
"No other theory of the physical world has caused such consternation as quantum theory, for no other theory has so com…"
"… that what is proved, by impossibility proofs, is lack of imagination."
"I am a Quantum Engineer, but on Sundays I Have Principles."
"Quantum mechanics had never been wrong. And now we know that it will not be wrong even in these very tricky conditions."
"I'm quite convinced of that: quantum theory is only a temporary expedient."
"This particular question of locality is still open, in my opinion. I think we have not found a way of digesting this …"
"So, what is quantum mechanics? Even though it was discovered by physicists, it’s not a physical theory in the same se…"