Related papers: The Problem of the Observer in Physics
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…
During many years since the birth of quantum mechanics, instrumentalist interpretations prevailed: the meaning of the theory was expressed in terms of measurements results. But in the last decades, several attempts to interpret it from a…
The main argument by proponents of Many-World interpretations of quantum mechanics is that as more and more previously disentangled degrees of freedom become entangled with the microscopic degree we measure, there is no way of telling when…
The concept of {\em complexity} (as a quantity) has been plagued by numerous contradictory and confusing definitions. By explicitly recognising a role for the observer of a system, an observer that attaches meaning to data about the system,…
We provide an introduction to the theory of quantum measurements that is centered on the pivotal role played by John von Neumann's model. This introduction is accessible to students and researchers from outside the field of foundations of…
In the quantum Bayesian (or QBist) conception of quantum theory, "quantum measurement" is understood not as a comparison of something pre-existent with a standard, but instead indicative of the creation of something new in the universe:…
I flesh out the sense in which the informational approach to interpreting quantum mechanics, as defended by Pitowsky and Bub and lately by a number of other authors, is (neo-)Bohrian. I argue that on this approach, quantum mechanics…
We attempt to dissolve the measurement problem using an anthropic principle which allows us to invoke rational observers. We argue that the key feature of such observers is that they are rational (we need not care whether they are…
Measurement is an important scientific activity. In most of science, including classical physics, is may be understood as a way of finding out about the physical world and representing the results numerically. No-go theorems show that…
An emergent theory of quantum measurement arises directly by considering the particular subset of many body wavefunctions that can be associated with classical condensed matter and its interaction with delocalized wavefunctions. This…
We propose partial measurements as a conceptual tool to understand how to operate with counterfactual claims in quantum physics. Indeed, unlike standard von Neumann measurements, partial measurements can be reversed probabilistically. We…
In Quantum Physics it is not always possible to directly perform the measurement of an obsevable; in some of these cases, however, its value can be {\sl detected}, i.e. it can be inferred by measuring {\sl another} observable characterized…
Recently, a measure has been put forward which allows for the quantification of the degree of reality of an observable for a given preparation [A. L. O. Bilobran and R. M. Angelo, Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. Here we employ this…
The conceptual problems in quantum mechanics -- related to the collapse of the wave function, the particle-wave duality, the meaning of measurement -- arise from the need to ascribe particle character to the wave function. As will be shown,…
In this study, we investigate quantum nonseparability between an observed system and a measuring apparatus, or multiple measuring apparatuses. We show that the physical meaning of the outcome of the measuring apparatus obtained by weak…
The measurement problem is approached from a mechanical aspect, utilizing schematics to better assist in visualizing the boundary and the interplay between the quantum and classical worlds. This approach graphically illustrates what happens…
Consideration of the von Neumann measurement process underlying interference experiments shows that the uncertainty in the incoming wave, responsible for its interference, translates during measurement into an uncertainty at the measuring…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…
Since its inception, quantum theory has been the subject of fierce interpretive controversy, which persists to this day. Disputed topics include the basic ontology and dynamics of the theory, the role (if any) of measurement, the meaning of…
No consensus seems to exist as to what constitutes a measurement which is still considered somewhat mysterious in many respects in quantum mechanics. At successive stages mathematical theory of measure, metrology and measurement theory…