Information-theoretical foundations of quantum physics
All our description of world is represented by propositions. This epistemological structure is not a matter of our choice. Rather, it is a necessity that is behind all our attempts to extract meaning whatsoever out of our observations. The simplest proposition is an answer to a single yes-or-no question. It is impossible to imagine a more elementary proposition.
We suggested that a natural understanding of some essential features of quantum physics, such as the irreducible randomness of individual events, quantum complementary and entanglement, result when one accepts that the most elementary physical system represents the truth value to one single elementary proposition. Alternatively, one can say that the most elementary system carries one bit of information.
Since the total information carried by the system is not enough to determine the results of all possible measurements, these results must contain an element of irreducible randomness. Furthermore, the finiteness of the total information implies the existence of complementary observables in which an increase in the knowledge of one of the observables is at the expense of the corresponding decrease of the knowledge in other(s). We also derived the Malus law – the well-known cosine law for quantum probabilities – from the assumption of the invariance of the total information under the choice of a complete set of mutually complementary propositions. Finally, quantum entanglement is shown to arise from the possibility that the information in a composite system may reside more in the correlations between elementary systems than in the individual elementary systems themselves.
A. Zeilinger,
A foundation principle of quantum physics
Found. Phys. 29, 631-643 (1999).
C. Brukner and A. Zeilinger,
Information and fundamental elements of the structure of quantum theory
in Time, Quantum, Information, Ed. L. Castell and O Ischebeck (Springer, 2003) / e-print
Read more:
Feature of New Scientist (27 March 2004), H. C. von Bayer, In the beginning was the bit, with cover page: The idea from which all reality flows
Feature of Science & Vie, 1019, 58 (August 2002), H. Poirier, II n’y a plus de paradoxes quantiqes
