The Standard Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Roland L. Omnes

Olímpia Lombardi

Abstract Since the Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation (MHI) is based on the formalism and the minimal interpretation of Standard Quantum Mechanics (SQM), this chapter may seem superfluous: it could be argued that everyone knows what SQM is. However, as remarked in the previous chapter, the identification of SQM is not as immediate as is usually assumed. Therefore, if an interpretation of quantum mechanics is to be precisely developed, the underlying theoretical commitments must be clear from the very beginning. The second reason why this chapter is not superfluous is that the MHI differs from the traditional Hilbert space formulation of SQM by adopting the algebraic formalism as its departing point. Although this might seem a minor formal detail, it will play a central role in the ontological picture arising from the MHI interpretation, as will be seen in Chapter 10.

Mohammad Reza Abolhasani, M. Golshani

Recently, people have calculated tunneling's characteristic times within Bohmian mechanics. Contrary to some characteristic times defined within the framework of the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, these have reasonable values. Here, we introduce one of the available definitions for tunneling's characteristic times within the standard interpretation as the best definition that can be accepted for the tunneling times. We show that, due to experimental limitations, Bohmian mechanics leads to the same tunneling times.

Stig Stenholm, Luigi Accardi, Guillaume Adenier +5 more

Alexander A. Pechenkin

The article takes under consideration three versions of the ensemble (statistical) interpretation of quantum mechanics and discusses the interconnection of these interpretations with the philosophy of science. To emphasize the specifics of the problem of interpretation of quantum mechanics in the USSR, the Marxist ideology is taken into account. The present paper continues the author’s previous analysis of ensemble interpretations which emerged in the USA and USSR in the first half of the 20th century. The author emphasizes that the ensemble approach turned out to be a dead end for the development of the interpretation of quantum mechanics in Russia. The article also argues that in Soviet Russia, the classical Copenhagen (standard) approach to quantum mechanics was used. The Copenhagen approach was developed by Lev Landau in 1919–1931 and became the basis of the Landau-Lifshitz famous course on quantum mechanics, one of the classics of twentieth-century physics literature (the first edition was published in 1947). Although Vladimir A. Fock’s approach to the interpretation of quantum mechanics differs from the standard presentation by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, Fock put forward a very important principle that complementarity is a “firmly established law of nature”. The fundamental writings of Lev Landau, Vladimir Fock and Igor Tamm, the authors of the mid-twentieth century, did a lot to defend the standard point of view such as the popular interpretations by Landau and Lifshitz. This approach can be traced back to Landau’s early writings and to Fock’s criticism of the ensemble approach.

‎Louis Marchildon