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State Vector Collapse as a Classical Statistical Effect of Measurement

Marcello Cini, Maurizio Serva

Published Oct 19, 2017• 0 citations

Abstract

The absence of a general consensus among physicists about the old question of the measurement induced state vector collapse in quantum mechanics is, at first sight, puzzling. It is true, of course that the question cannot, at least as yet, be settled by submitting it to the final decision of experiment. Still, one would like to understand better the main issue of disagreement which leads to such a wide variety of possible solutions. We believe that the origin of this disagreement lies in a fundamental ambiguity which exists in our understanding of the relation between quantum mechanics (QM) and classical statistical mechanics (CSM). For this reason we will start by discussing at length this ambiguity, whose clarification is, in our opinion, preliminary to any attempt to find a solution of the question which is the central theme of our Colloquium. We will come back to this question, therefore, only in the final part of this talk.

DOI: 10.1201/9780203741467-7

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