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Kochen’s Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Frank Arntzenius*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California

Extract

It is well-known that developments of quantum mechanical states according to the Schrödinger equation during a measurement seem to prevent measurements from having definite results. For, the usually assumed (idealized) Schrödinger development of the measured object and the measuring apparatus during a measurement typically results in a state of the entire system which is a superposition of the eigenstates of the measured observable and measuring observable. And the most common interpretations of quantum mechanics state that an observable does not have a definite value if the quantum mechanical state is a superposition of the eigenstates of the observable. Many ways out of this problem have been suggested. I want to discuss an interpretation suggested by S. Kochen (Kochen 1985), and suggest similar interpretations, each of which accept the universal validity of the Schrödinger equation, and yet yield definite results for measurements.

Type
Part IV. Quantum Theory
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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References

Arntzenius, F. (1987), Determinism, Time Reversibility, and Measurement, Ph. D. Thesis, London University, unpublished.Google Scholar
Kochen, S. (1986), “A New Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics”, Proceedings of the Symposium on the Foundations of Modern Physics, Joensu, Finland: World Scientific Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Kochen, S., and Specker, E. (1967), “The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics”, Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17: 5987.Google Scholar
Redhead, M. (1987), Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar