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Measurements and Quantum States: Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Henry Margenau
Henry Margenau*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

This is the second, mathematically more detailed part of a paper consisting of two articles, the first having appeared in the immediately preceding issue of this Journal∗. It shows that a measurement converts a pure case into a mixture with reducible probabilities. The measurement as such permits no inference whatever as to the state of the physical system subjected to measurement after the measurement has been performed. But because the probabilities after the act are classical and therefore reducible, it is often possible to adjust them so that Von Neumann's projection postulate is true.

Among the more specific features dealt with in Part II is the occurrence of negative joint probabilities for the measurement of non-commuting operators in certain (not all!) quantum states. The general conclusions reached are stated at the end of the article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , April 1963 , pp. 138 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1963

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Footnotes

∗

Philosophy of Science, Vol. 30, No. 1, (January, 1963) pp. 1–16.

References

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