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The histories interpretation of quantum mechanics

Kefu Zhu

Published Aug 22, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

This chapter discusses the main points and thought sources of the quantum histories interpretation. Section 3.1 introduces its core concepts, theoretical assumptions, and basic formalism first, as well as how probability calculations and propositional reasoning are performed here, and shows how this interpretation depicts the process by which (quasi-)classicality is derived from quantum histories. Section 3.2 sorts out the five important thought sources from which it emerges: the Copenhagen interpretation, Feynman’s sum-over-histories formulation of quantum mechanics, Wigner’s measurement theory, Everett’s relative state interpretation or many-worlds interpretation, and the mechanism of decoherence. Their respective correlations, similarities, and differences with the quantum histories interpretation are briefly analyzed. In the appendix to this chapter, three notorious paradoxes showing intractable aspects of quantum mechanics, namely the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, Wheeler’s delayed choice gedankenexperiment, and Frauchiger–Renner paradox, are formulated via history chain operator analysis in the quantum histories formalism.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003662860-3

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