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MON: Monday Contributed Sessions

MON 19: Foundational / Mathematical Aspects – Quantum Optics and Quantum Information

MON 19.5: Talk

Monday, September 8, 2025, 17:30–17:45, ZHG008

Understanding quantum theory — •Adán Cabello — University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

“Nobody understands quantum mechanics” in the sense that nobody can “reduce it to the freshman level”. Here, we ague that John Bell’s observation that quantum theory is about “experiments” (rather than about “measurements”), together with a convenient rephrasing of four technical results, two of them about general theories of experiments [taken from G. Chiribella et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 042001(R) (2020)] and two of them about sets of correlations in general physical theories [taken from B. Amaral et al., Phys. Rev. A 89, 030101(R) (2014) and A. Cabello, Phys. Rev. A 100, 032120 (2019)] provide a compelling narrative for understanding quantum theory and “where does it come from”.

Keywords: Foundations of quantum theory; Principles of quantum theory; Quantum correlations; General probabilistic theories