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In the famous thought experiment known as Wigner's friend, Wigner assigns an entangled state to the composite quantum system consisting of his friend and her observed system. In the context of this thought experiment, Brukner recently…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-04-30 Ian T. Durham

The notorious Wigner's friend thought experiment (and modifications thereof) has in recent years received renewed interest especially due to new arguments that force us to question some of the fundamental assumptions of quantum theory. In…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-05-18 Philippe Allard Guérin , Veronika Baumann , Flavio Del Santo , Časlav Brukner

The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them. In quantum mechanics, the objectivity of observations is not so clear, most dramatically…

The Wigner's friend type of thought experiments manifest the conceptual challenge on how different observers can have consistent descriptions of a quantum measurement event. In this paper, we analyze the extended version of Wigner's friend…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-11-12 Jianhao M. Yang

Does quantum theory apply at all scales, including that of observers? New light on this fundamental question has recently been shed through a resurgence of interest in the long-standing Wigner's friend paradox. This is a thought experiment…

The Wigner's friend paradox concerns one of the most puzzling problems of quantum mechanics: the consistent description of multiple nested observers. Recently, a variation of Wigner's gedankenexperiment, introduced by Frauchiger and Renner,…

The decoherence interpretation of quantum measurements is applied to Wigner's friend experiments. A framework in which all the experimental outcomes arise from unitary evolutions is proposed. Within it, a measurement is not completed until…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-03-25 Armando Relaño

We discuss the no-go theorem of Frauchiger and Renner based on an "extended Wigner's friend" thought experiment which is supposed to show that any single-world interpretation of quantum mechanics leads to inconsistent predictions if it is…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-11-14 Dustin Lazarovici , Mario Hubert

Two recent, prominent theorems--the "no-go theorem for observer-independent facts" and the "Local Friendliness no-go theorem"--employ so-called extended Wigner's friend scenarios to try to impose novel, non-trivial constraints on the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-06-02 E. Okon

The notion of measurements is central for many debates in quantum mechanics. One critical point is whether a measurement can be regarded as an absolute event, giving the same result for any observer in an irreversible manner. Using ideas…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-02-20 Zhen-Peng Xu , Jonathan Steinberg , H. Chau Nguyen , Otfried Gühne

Recent arguments, involving entangled systems shared by sets of Wigner's friend arrangements, allegedly show that the assumption that the experiments performed by the friends yield definite outcomes, is incompatible with quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-01-20 Elias Okon

The concept of an isolated system, and Frauchiger and Renner's extended `Wigner's friend' scenario are discussed. It is argued that: (i) it is questionable whether the approximation of the isolated system is valid when measurement-like…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-12 Andrew Steane

The description of Wigner-friend scenarios -- in which external agents describe a closed laboratory containing a friend making a measurement -- remains problematic due to the ambiguous nature of quantum measurements. One option is to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-10-16 J. Allam , A. Matzkin

The Extended Wigner's Friend thought experiment, which involves a quantum system with an agent who draws conclusions based on the results of a measurement of a quantum state provided in two nonorthogonal versions by another agent, led its…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-11-15 Szymon Łukaszyk

Wigner's friend experiment and its modern extensions display the ambiguity of the quantum mechanical description regarding the assignment of quantum states. While the friend applies the state-update rule to the system upon observing an…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-10-22 Flavio Del Santo , Gonzalo Manzano , Caslav Brukner

According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-10-19 John B. DeBrota , Christopher A. Fuchs , Ruediger Schack

The notorious quantum measurement problem brings out the difficulty to reconcile two quantum postulates: the unitary evolution of closed quantum systems and the wave-function collapse after a measurement. This problematics is particularly…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-08-24 George Moreno , Ranieri Nery , Cristhiano Duarte , Rafael Chaves

The Wigner's friend experiment is a thought experiment in which a so-called superobserver (Wigner) observes another observer (the friend) who has performed a quantum measurement on a physical system. In this setup Wigner treats the friend,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-09-25 Veronika Baumann , Časlav Brukner

The paradox of Wigner's friend challenges the objectivity of description in quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by judicious appeal to decoherence. On this interpretation, quantum theory provides situated…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-06-22 Richard Healey

A recent no-go theorem gives an extension of the Wigner's friend argument that purports to prove that "Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself." The argument is complex and thought provoking, but fails in a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-03-18 Anthony Rizzi
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