On the Physical Reality of Quantum Waves

Abstract

The main interpretations of the quantum-mechanical wave function are presented emphasizing how they can be divided into two ensembles: The ones that deny and the other ones that attribute a form of reality to quantum waves. It is also shown why these waves cannot be classical and must be submitted to the restriction of the complementarity principle. Applying the concept of smooth complementarity, it is shown that there can be no reason to attribute reality only to the events and not to the wave or to the initial state of a given system. Thereafter, an experiment proposed by the authors is presented, where it is shown that the wave-like behaviour allows predictions that are not allowed on the grounds of a particle-like behaviour. In conclusion, we upheld that quantum waves must be real even if they do not belong to the same ontological level of events, which connected with particle detections.

Science, philosophy, and religion today: Some reflections

“…93 However, the wave-like, superposed state cannot be assigned physical properties in the same way that we assign them to the system when it displays corpuscular behavior. 94 This confirms Aristotle's intuition that one cannot assign actual properties to a form of potential being. This represents the return to a scientific framework of a concept, potentiality, that was banished by modern science.…”

From Wave-Particle to Features-Event Complementarity

“…However, would this mean that, before detection, there is no reality at all? If this were the case, an event would appear from nothing [4]. It is true that according to the previous section, an event is a pure random happening in quantum mechanics.…”

Quantum Ontology and Extensional Mereology

“…Agazzi underlines, in Agazzi [1], three fundamental senses of such a term: "objectivity as inter-subjectivity, as invariance and as correspondence to objects". 4 Through an effective and detailed analysis he argues that these three senses can be identified. The presuppositions grounding the possibility of such an identification, from an epistemological point of view, are essentially three:…”

“…However a new thought experiment that could be easily realized has been proposed, for example in Auletta and Tarozzi [4,5], to the point that quantum waves could produce EPR style correlations. This would actually allow a new and unsuspected relation to be established between two different realistic interpretations of QM: Agazzi's realism about theoretical entities on the one hand and the EPR's principle of local realism on the other.…”