Stochastic models in classical and quantum mechanics

Abstract

Characteristic features of the probabilistic models used in classical mechanics, statistical physics, and quantum theory are discussed. The viewpoint according to which there is no room for probabilities in Nature, as such, is consistently substantiated; the researcher is forced to introduce probabilistic concepts and the corresponding models in conditions that provide only partial predictability of the phenomena being studied. This approach allows one to achieve a consistent interpretation of some important physical phenomena, in particular, the relationship between instability and irreversibility in time, the stochastic evolution of systems in the theory of deterministic chaos, Boltzmann’s H-theorem, and paradoxes of quantum mechanics.