dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaDiese verdammte quantenspringerei
| Authors | Anthony Sudbery |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0011082 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011082 |
| Journal | Stud. Hist. Phil. Mod. Phys. 33 (2002), 387-411 |
Abstract
It is argued that the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics is inadequate: the usual interpretation of the mathematical formalism in terms of the results of measurements cannot be applied to situations in which discontinuous transitions ("quantum jumps) are observed as they happen, since nothing that can be called a measurement happens at the moment of observation. Attempts to force such observations into the standard mould lead to absurd results: "a watched pot never boils". Experiments show both that this result is correct when the experiment does indeed consist of a series of measurements, and that it is not when the experiment consists of a period of observation: quantum jumps do happen. The possibilities for improving the formalism by incorporating transitions in the basic postulates are reviewed, and a satisfactory postulate is obtained by modifying a suggestion of Bell's. This requires a distinction between the external description of the whole of a physical system and internal descriptions which are themselves physical events in the system. It is shown that this gives correct results for simple unstable systems and for the quantum-jump experiments.
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"abstract": "It is argued that the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics is\ninadequate: the usual interpretation of the mathematical formalism in terms of\nthe results of measurements cannot be applied to situations in which\ndiscontinuous transitions (\"quantum jumps) are observed as they happen, since\nnothing that can be called a measurement happens at the moment of observation.\nAttempts to force such observations into the standard mould lead to absurd\nresults: \"a watched pot never boils\". Experiments show both that this result is\ncorrect when the experiment does indeed consist of a series of measurements,\nand that it is not when the experiment consists of a period of observation:\nquantum jumps do happen. The possibilities for improving the formalism by\nincorporating transitions in the basic postulates are reviewed, and a\nsatisfactory postulate is obtained by modifying a suggestion of Bell\u0027s. This\nrequires a distinction between the external description of the whole of a\nphysical system and internal descriptions which are themselves physical events\nin the system. It is shown that this gives correct results for simple unstable\nsystems and for the quantum-jump experiments.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0011082",
"authors": [
"Anthony Sudbery"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"journal_ref": "Stud. Hist. Phil. Mod. Phys. 33 (2002), 387-411",
"title": "Diese verdammte quantenspringerei",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011082"
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