Friday, November 30, 2007

Measurement Problem

Rovelli's work is 2006. see http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9609002. When I think about it I don't see how he solves the measurement problem. He solves Schroedinger's cat. Idea: The cat measures the radioactive decay by dieing or not. But you can't talk about the cat until you interact with it by opening the box. I like Rovelli's notion that there is no distinction between observer and the observed. Everything is a system: observer or observed are just interacting systems. But the measurement problem is far more profound. I gathered some quotes to state it.

ALL POSSIBILITIES ARE LEFT OPEN. BUT A DEFINITE OUTCOME OCCURS.

“The quantum measurement parodox.. stated succinctly... In quantum mechanics all possibilities... are left open whereas in ... experience a definite outcome always (occurs).”
A. J. Leggett in
Foundation of Physics. 18, 939 (1988)

“How is the measuring instrument proded into making up its mind which value it has observed?”
Bryce S. Dewitt Physics Today 23, 30 (1970)

“Some explanation must be provided for the fact that the Hilbert—space vector... collapses onto a certain eigenvector during a measurement process...”
J. Bub, Nuovo Cimento v. 57, Nr.2, 503 (1968)

The probability amplitudes evolve deterministically until a measurement is made: the measurement stops the evolution. What is the essential element that changes the evolution of the system from being in a state |S> = superposition of states |n>, into being in a state |n=3>, one from among the superposition? Marvin Chester, never published

Somehow the answer to these questions must be explicable in terms other than it "comes out of a subtle result on the structure of Hilbert spaces".

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