arXiv:quant-ph/0612065

Quantum mechanics without measurements

Robert B. Griffiths

Published Dec 8, 2006• 3 citations

Abstract

Many of the conceptual problems students have in understanding quantum mechanics arise from the way probabilities are introduced in standard (textbook) quantum theory through the use of measurements. Introducing consistent microscopic probabilities in quantum theory requires setting up appropriate sample spaces taking proper account of quantum incompatibility. When this is done the Schrodinger equation can be used to calculate probabilities independent of whether a system is or is not being measured, and the results usually ascribed to wave function collapse are obtained in a less misleading way through conditional probabilities. Toy models that include measurement apparatus as part of the total quantum system make this approach accessible to students. Some comments are made about teaching this material.

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0612065

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Approaches for improving students' understanding of quantum mechanics

Robert B. Griffiths

In the first sentence of their article “Improving Students’ Understanding of Quantum Mechanics” ( Physics Today, August 2006, page 43), Chandralekha Singh, Mario Belloni, and Wolfgang Christian refer to Richard Feynman's well-known assertion that nobody understands quantum mechanics. But thereafter they ignore it, and apparently assume that student misconceptions when learning quantum mechanics are not connected with foundational issues. I argue the contrary, that Feynman's statement should be a central concern in all efforts to improve quantum pedagogy. If we teachers do not understand a topic, we pass our own misconceptions on to our students and make the subject much more difficult for them.Many conceptual difficulties, including those Feynman was referring to, arise from the problem of introducing probabilities into quantum theory in a useful and consistent way. Textbooks avoid the problem by assigning probabilities to macroscopic measurement outcomes rather than to microscopic quantum systems. Although that approach avoids inconsistencies, it gives rise to some serious misconceptions: Measurements are somehow special and unrelated to other quantum phenomena; they require a “classical” apparatus that functions outside the scope of quantum mechanics (where is one to find such a thing nowadays?); they produce physical effects at long distances; one can say nothing sensible about what a quantum system is doing in the absence of measurements; measurements can be used to predict the future of the measured system but tell us nothing about its past; and so forth. These misconceptions are not unrelated to those that Singh and coauthors have reported.Students learning quantum mechanics could benefit greatly if their instructors used advances in our understanding that have occurred during the 40 years since Feynman unashamedly confessed his perplexity. He seems to have reacted favorably to a preliminary version of the new ideas (see the letter from Murray Gell-Mann and James Hartle in Physics Today, February 1999, page 11), so he might have appreciated the more mature form now available. In brief, we now know how to consistently assign probabilities directly to microscopic systems without referring to measurements, and we can show that under appropriate conditions a properly constructed measurement apparatus, described in fully quantum terms, will reveal properties the measured system possessed before the measurement took place. In such circumstances the probabilities of measurement outcomes are the same as those of the measured properties, and measurements are no longer an essential conceptual tool: One can think directly in physical terms about what the quantum system is doing at different times. This gets rid of a major source of student difficulties and misconceptions.Consider the example reported by Singh and coauthors in which students used a calculation employing 〈A〉 = 〈ψ|A|ψ〉 to find the expectation of an observable A, rather than simply using a probability distribution they had worked out previously. (In that article, A was the energy, but the same principle applies to any observable.) This failure is not surprising given that textbooks lack a good discussion of how to assign probability distributions to observables. So the student memorizes an independent formula 〈A〉 = 〈ψ|A|ψ〉, which is a good way of calculating something that comes up in homework and exams, but whose physical significance is not particularly clear (to student or instructor). What the student should be taught is that A is the quantum counterpart of a random variable in ordinary probability theory, and its average can be obtained from its probability distribution in exactly the same way. Defining 〈A〉 in this manner before introducing 〈ψ|A|ψ〉 as a convenient formula for calculating it would make things clearer. But quantum textbooks do not contain the necessary tools, and for good reason. With two noncommuting observables A and B, it is easy to poke either of them into the 〈ψ|A|ψ〉 formula, whereas assigning probabilities leads into a vast swamp, which work on quantum foundations has shown to be filled with nasty paradoxes ready to bite the unwary. Retreating to macroscopic measurements allows textbook writers to avoid the swamp, but with a serious loss in clarity of thought and physical intuition. It is better to drain the swamp of its root cause: a failed attempt to meld classical and quantum modes of reasoning, instead of consistently applying quantum concepts at all levels, microscopic and macroscopic, which is something we now know how to do.Another misconception reported in the Physics Today article, that measurement of a physical observable causes the system to be stuck forever in the measured eigenstate, is hardly surprising when students are taught that measurements and wavefunction collapse are part of the axiomatic, and thus unanalyzable, structure of quantum theory. Instead, they need to think about measurements as quantum physical processes, governed by the same laws as the rest of the quantum world, and learn how to use conditional probabilities to relate measurement outcomes to the past as well as the future behavior of a measured system. Once again, outdated ideas make the subject harder to learn.For 10 years I have been teaching advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate quantum mechanics courses and courses in quantum information, using the new perspective in which quantum mechanics is based on probabilistic laws of universal validity, with measurements being only one application. Reactions have generally been positive, though the students show signs of shock when I tell them that by the end of the course, provided they do their homework, they will understand some aspects of quantum mechanics better than Feynman did. Presenting the new ideas takes somewhat longer than the material they replace, but not enormously so. Some time will be regained in courses that include an introduction to quantum entanglement and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen, since circuitous arguments invoking Bell's inequality and the like, which can leave students quite confused, are replaced by a short, clear treatment of the essentials.Although I can see the value of computer simulations of Schrödinger's equation, I think it is more effective to first introduce students to basic quantum dynamics, both unitary and stochastic, through the use of “toy models.” I included various examples in Consistent Quantum Theory . 1 1. R. B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge U. Press, New York (2002). Some chapters and a few exercises are available at http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu. The properties of such models are easily worked out with a pencil on a small sheet of paper, like the back of an envelope. Working through them helps students master new concepts and get rid of certain misconceptions about quantum measurements. The fact that students in my courses have been able to learn how to apply probabilities consistently to microscopic systems, in a way that disposes of numerous difficulties and conceptual paradoxes, suggests it might be worthwhile for other teachers to invest some time in learning post-Feynman ideas. The main difficulty is the absence of a textbook. I have used reference 1 as a supplement, though it is not ideal. It has no exercises, although a few are available on the corresponding website. I would be happy to hear from anyone skilled in textbook writing who wants to revise an older one or start something new.In conclusion, I strongly favor every effort to improve students’ understanding of quantum mechanics, and I consider the research reported by Singh and coauthors a valuable contribution to that end. However, if we want our students to genuinely understand quantum mechanics and not simply calculate things, I believe a much bigger step forward is possible by combining the efforts reported in the article with advances in quantum foundations.REFERENCESection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCE <<1. R. B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge U. Press, New York (2002). Some chapters and a few exercises are available at http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu. Google Scholar© 2007 American Institute of Physics.

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David Mermin, in his commentary in the July 2012 issue of Physics Today (page 8), put forth what he calls the QBist (quantum Bayesian) approach to quantum foundations. He claims that replacing a frequentist approach to quantum probabilities with a Bayesian approach solves the quantum measurement problem and fixes the “shifty split” between classical and quantum that John Bell complained about.11. J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed., Cambridge U. Press, New York (2004), chap. 23. I disagree. Mermin has not addressed the real issue that besets quantum probabilities, he has not solved the measurement problem, and he has put the shifty split in the wrong place.The quantum measurement problem, understanding an actual physical measurement in fully quantum terms, has two parts. First, unitary time development (Schrödinger’s equation) often results in a quantum superposition of different outcomes—different positions of the apparatus pointer, in the quaint language of quantum foundations. Various equivocations proposed to get rid of that Schrödinger’s cat were among the main targets of Bell’s critique. When this first part is solved the second task is to link the pointer position to the microscopic property the apparatus was designed to measure, at a time before the measurement took place. Experimental physicists talk about detecting a gamma ray emitted by a nucleus, or a neutrino emitted in a supernova explosion, using apparatus that either destroys or violently alters the object under study. They are not fools, though one might think so from reading textbook discussions of measurement that only consider properties of a microscopic system at a time after interacting with the apparatus—best referred to as a preparation, not a measurement.Mermin seems to think that the measurement problem—presumably the first problem—is solved by using the quantum wavefunction to calculate a probability, in a manner easily taught to undergraduates. However, the main conceptual difficulty with quantum probabilities is not in calculating them but in identifying their referents, what it is they are about. When the weatherman assigns a high probability to a severe thunderstorm on Thursday afternoon, both frequentists and Bayesians will want to seek shelter. They will agree that the probability refers to thunderstorms rather than stock-market prices. The first task in constructing a probabilistic model, for the weather or games of chance or radioactive decay, is to identify a sample space of mutually exclusive possibilities, one and only one of which can be correct or occur in a particular experiment or on a particular occasion. Only when a sample space has been defined is it possible to assign probabilities to suitable subsets, averages to random variables, and so forth.A classical phase space is easily turned into a probabilistic sample space: The different points represent distinct physical states of affairs. But a quantum Hilbert space is very different if, following John von Neumann’s thinking, one associates physical properties with (closed) subspaces and associates their negations with orthogonal complements of the subspaces. That classical–quantum difference was the origin of quantum logic,22. G. Birkhoff, J. von Neumann, Ann. Math. 37, 823 (1936). https://doi.org/10.2307/1968621 which, despite early hopes and much hard work, has not resolved the conceptual difficulties of quantum mechanics.33. G. Bacciagaluppi, in Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures: Quantum Logic, K. Engesser, D. M. Gabbay, D. Lehmann, eds., North-Holland, Amsterdam (2009), p. 49. But it does point to important issues that need to be considered when discussing quantum probabilities. Mermin and his fellow QBists should pay attention.Quantum orthodoxy has no solution for the fundamental problem of defining a quantum sample space. Instead, it covers with a black box the mysterious whatever-it-is that the quantum wavefunction might have something to do with. Talking about what is under the box is more or less strictly forbidden, for it is well known that physicists who attempt to do so will fall into the quantum swamp, to be eaten by the Great Smoky Dragon or driven insane by the Paradoxes. The black box is my term for Bell’s split between the macroscopic and microscopic, a split forever shifting as experimentalists manage to entangle larger and larger quantum systems. According to Mermin, the QBists place the split “between the world in which an agent lives and her experience of that world.” That is no improvement: The box would then cover the physicist rather than the quantum mystery. Bell would not have been pleased.Bell was unaware of the consistent or decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics,44. P. C. Hohenberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2835 (2010); https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2835 R. B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge U. Press, New York (2002); R. B. Griffiths, Found. Phys. 41, 705 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-010-9512-5 which, unlike QBism, solves both measurement problems in a way fully consistent with the Hilbert space structure of quantum mechanics and consistent with special relativity. It drives the shifty split off to infinity where it belongs: Quantum physics applies at all scales, from the quarks to the quasars. And it gets rid of the spooky nonlocal influences that Einstein found so distasteful. It seems odd that Mermin has thrown his lot in with the QBists rather than paying serious attention to the histories approach which, unlike QBism, clearly satisfies two desiderata for a good quantum interpretation that he himself put forward 15 years ago:55. N. D. Mermin, Pramana 51, 549 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02827447 “The theory should describe an objective reality independent of observers and their knowledge” and “objectively real internal properties of an isolated individual system should not change when something is done to another non-interacting system.”Mermin says even undergraduates can be taught enough quantum mechanics to update a quantum state assignment. I remember when my undergraduate quantum mechanics teacher, Robert Dicke of cosmic-background fame, was visibly uncomfortable as he introduced us to wavefunction collapse. For those who share this discomfort, I recommend that rather than telling students to “shut up and calculate,” we‣ Introduce them to the rudiments of probability theory, including the conditional probabilities used by both frequentists and Bayesians; one need not take sides.‣ Explain how to construct quantum sample spaces and assign probabilities in a way that does not generate paradoxes.‣ Explain wavefunction collapse as a tool for calculating certain conditional probabilities that can also be obtained using other methods; it is not a physical process.Readers who want more details can contact me or consult the works cited in reference 44. P. C. Hohenberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2835 (2010); https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2835 R. B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge U. Press, New York (2002); R. B. Griffiths, Found. Phys. 41, 705 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-010-9512-5 . I think it is high time we abolished antiquated approaches to teaching quantum theory along with the shifty split that confuses both students and their instructors.REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<CITING ARTICLES1. J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed., Cambridge U. Press, New York (2004), chap. 23. Google ScholarCrossref2. G. Birkhoff, J. von Neumann, Ann. Math. 37, 823 (1936). https://doi.org/10.2307/1968621, Google ScholarCrossref3. G. Bacciagaluppi, in Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures: Quantum Logic, K. Engesser, D. M. Gabbay, D. Lehmann, eds., North-Holland, Amsterdam (2009), p. 49. Google ScholarCrossref4. P. C. Hohenberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2835 (2010); https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2835 , Google ScholarCrossrefR. B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge U. Press, New York (2002); , Google ScholarR. B. Griffiths, Found. Phys. 41, 705 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-010-9512-5 , Google ScholarCrossref5. N. D. Mermin, Pramana 51, 549 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02827447 , Google ScholarCrossref, CAS© 2012 American Institute of Physics.

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