No Arabic abstract
The lately developed part of Quantum Bayesianism named QBism has been proclaimed by its authors a powerful interpretation of Quantum Physics. This article presents analysis of some aspects of QBism. The considered examples show inconsistencies in some basic statements of the discussed interpretation. In particular, the main quantum mechanical conundrum of measurement and the observer is, contrary to the claims, not resolved within the framework of QBism. The conclusion is made that the basic tenets of QBism as applied in Physics are unsubstantiated.
The Bayesian approach to quantum mechanics of Caves, Fuchs and Schack is presented. Its conjunction of realism about physics along with anti-realism about much of the structure of quantum theory is elaborated; and the position defended from common objections: that it is solipsist; that it is too instrumentalist; that it cannot deal with Wigners friend scenarios. Three more substantive problems are raised: Can a reasonable ontology be found for the approach? Can it account for explanation in quantum theory? Are subjective probabilities on their own adequate in the quantum domain? The first question is answered in the affirmative, drawing on elements from Nancy Cartwrights philosophy of science. The second two are not: it is argued that these present outstanding difficulties for the project. A quantum Bayesian version of Moores paradox is developed to illustrate difficulties with the subjectivist account of pure state assignments.
This paper presents a brief, semi-technical comparison of the essential features of the frequentist and Bayesian approaches to statistical inference, with several illustrative examples implemented in Python. The differences between frequentism and Bayesianism fundamentally stem from differing definitions of probability, a philosophical divide which leads to distinct approaches to the solution of statistical problems as well as contrasting ways of asking and answering questions about unknown parameters. After an example-driven discussion of these differences, we briefly compare several leading Python statistical packages which implement frequentist inference using classical methods and Bayesian inference using Markov Chain Monte Carlo.
Quantum theory is a well-defined local theory with a clear interpretation. No measurement problem or any other foundational matters are waiting to be settled.
We investigate the theoretical limits of the effect of the quantum interaction distance on the speed of exact quantum addition circuits. For this study, we exploit graph embedding for quantum circuit analysis. We study a logical mapping of qubits and gates of any $Omega(log n)$-depth quantum adder circuit for two $n$-qubit registers onto a practical architecture, which limits interaction distance to the nearest neighbors only and supports only one- and two-qubit logical gates. Unfortunately, on the chosen $k$-dimensional practical architecture, we prove that the depth lower bound of any exact quantum addition circuits is no longer $Omega(log {n})$, but $Omega(sqrt[k]{n})$. This result, the first application of graph embedding to quantum circuits and devices, provides a new tool for compiler development, emphasizes the impact of quantum computer architecture on performance, and acts as a cautionary note when evaluating the time performance of quantum algorithms.
We present efficient quantum algorithms for simulating time-dependent Hamiltonian evolution of general input states using an oracular model of a quantum computer. Our algorithms use either constant or adaptively chosen time steps and are significant because they are the first to have time-complexities that are comparable to the best known methods for simulating time-independent Hamiltonian evolution, given appropriate smoothness criteria on the Hamiltonian are satisfied. We provide a thorough cost analysis of these algorithms that considers discretizion errors in both the time and the representation of the Hamiltonian. In addition, we provide the first upper bounds for the error in Lie-Trotter-Suzuki approximations to unitary evolution operators, that use adaptively chosen time steps.