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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…

In his famous thought experiment, Wigner assigns an entangled state to the composite quantum system made up of Wigner's friend and her observed system. While the two of them have different accounts of the process, each Wigner and his friend…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-06-05 Caslav Brukner

The Wigner's friend thought experiment has gained a resurgence of interest in recent years thanks to no-go theorems that extend it to Bell-like scenarios. One of these, by us and co-workers, showcased the contradiction that arises between…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-05-17 Aníbal Utreras-Alarcón , Eric G. Cavalcanti , Howard M. Wiseman

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 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

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 Wigner's friend thought experiment was intended to illustrate the difficulty one has in describing an agent as a quantum system when that agent performs a measurement. While it does pose a challenge to the orthodox interpretation of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-09-12 David Schmid , Yìlè Yīng , Matthew Leifer

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

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

The place and role of an Observer in quantum mechanics has been a subject of an ongoing debate since the theory's inception. Wigner brought this question to the fore in a celebrated scenario in which a super-Observer observes a Friend…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-09-14 A. Matzkin , D. Sokolovski

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

Wigner's thought experiment illustrates quantum theory's measurement problem by considering an observer who measures a quantum system inside a sealed lab, modeled unitarily by an outsider. Recent extensions of this thought experiment,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-15 Laurens Walleghem

This paper discusses a possible resolution of the nonobjectivity-nonlocality dilemma in quantum mechanics in 'the light of experimental tests of the Bell inequality for two entangled photons and a Bell-like inequality for a single neutron.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-03-30 Andrei Khrennikov

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

Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) treats quantum states as observer-dependent facts rather than absolute properties. While this relational stance is conceptually attractive, it raises concerns about empirical confirmation, particularly in…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2026-03-05 Bethany Terris

A realist description of our universe requires a twofold concept of locality. On one hand, there are the strictly Einstein-local interactions which generate the time evolution. On the other hand, the quantum state space calls for a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-08-27 Andreas O. Tell

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

In this paper, I attempt a personal account of my understanding of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, which has been largely in the tradition of the Copenhagen interpretation. I assume that (i) the quantum state is a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-07-21 Caslav Brukner

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

Wigner's Friend-type paradoxes challenge the assumption that events are absolute -- that when we measure a system, we obtain a single result, which is not relative to anything or anyone else. These paradoxes highlight the tension between…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-23 Sumit Mukherjee , Jonte R. Hance
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