Related papers: Quantum Histories
I review the decoherent (or consistent) histories approach to quantum mechanics, due to Griffiths, to Gell-Mann and Hartle, and to Omnes. This is an approach to standard quantum theory specifically designed to apply to genuinely closed…
Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…
We pursue the view that quantum theory may be an emergent structure related to large space-time scales. In particular, we consider classical Hamiltonian systems in which the intrinsic proper time evolution parameter is related through a…
In the consistent histories formalism one specifies a family of histories as an exhaustive set of pairwise exclusive descriptions of the dynamics of a quantum system. We define branching families of histories, which strike a middle ground…
The origin of the phenomenological deterministic laws that approximately govern the quasiclassical domain of familiar experience is considered in the context of the quantum mechanics of closed systems such as the universe as a whole. We…
The (consistent or decoherent) histories interpretation provides a consistent realistic ontology for quantum mechanics, based on two main ideas. First, a logic (system of reasoning) is employed which is compatible with the Hilbert-space…
In the consistent histories formulation of quantum theory, the probabilistic predictions and retrodictions made from observed data depend on the choice of a consistent set. We show that this freedom allows the formalism to retrodict…
We consider Gell-Mann and Hartle's consistent histories formulation of quantum cosmology in the interpretation in which one history, chosen randomly according to the decoherence functional probabilities, is realised from each consistent…
The theme of this paper is the multiplicity of the consistent sets appearing in the consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics. We propose one criterion for choosing preferred families among them: that the physically realizable…
A rigorous general definition of quantum probability is given, which is valid for elementary events and for composite events, for operationally testable measurements as well as for inconclusive measurements, and also for non-commuting…
By considering (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics as it is done in practice in particular in condensed-matter physics, it is argued that a deterministic, unitary time evolution within a chosen Hilbert space always has a limited scope,…
Physics is based on probabilities as fundamental entities of a mathematical description. Expectation values of observables are computed according to the classical statistical rule. The overall probability distribution for one world covers…
Is quantum mechanics about 'states'? Or is it basically another kind of probability theory? It is argued that the elementary formalism of quantum mechanics operates as a well-justified alternative to 'classical' instantiations of a…
We sketch a quantum mechanical framework for the universe as a whole. Within that framework we propose a program for describing the ultimate origin in quantum cosmology of the quasiclassical domain of familiar experience and for…
A characteristical property of a classical physical theory is that the observables are real functions taking an exact outcome on every (pure) state; in a quantum theory, at the contrary, a given observable on a given state can take several…
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…
The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…
We critically evaluate the treatment of the notion of measurement in the Consistent Histories approach to quantum mechanics. We find such a treatment unsatisfactory because it relies, often implicitly, on elements external to those provided…
The consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics is traditionally based on linearly ordered sequences of events. We extend the histories formalism to sets of events whose causal ordering is described by directed acyclic graphs. The…
The formalism for histories-based generalized quantum mechanics developed in two earlier papers is applied to the treatment of histories (of particles or fields or more general objects) in curved spacetimes (which need not admit foliation…