English

On the Aharonov-Anandan Experiment

High Energy Physics - Theory 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

An experiment that would measure non--commuting quantum mechanical observables without collapsing the wave function has been recently proposed by Y Aharonov and J Anandan. These authors argue that this "protected measurement" may give indication on "the reality of the wave function". We argue that, depending of the precise version of the experiment considered, either the author's prediction is incorrect and the wave function does collapse, or the measurement is not a measurement on a quantum system. In either case, the experiment does not provide a way for measuring non--commuting observables without collapse, and it does not bear on the issue of the "reality of the wave function".

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9304126,
  title  = {On the Aharonov-Anandan Experiment},
  author = {Carlo Rovelli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9304126},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

9 pages, LaTeX, preprint pitt-gr-3-93

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:45:51.133Z