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Quantum Logic
In the mathematical study of logic and the physical analysis of quantum foundations, quantum logic is a set of rules for manipulation of propositions inspired by the structure of quantum theory. The field takes as its starting point an observation of Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann, that the structure of experimental tests in classical mechanics forms a Boolean algebra, but the structure of experimental tests in quantum mechanics forms a much more complicated structure. Quantum logic has been proposed as the correct logic for propositional inference generally, most notably by the philosopher Hilary Putnam, at least at one point in his career. This thesis was an important ingredient in Putnam's 1968 paper "Is Logic Empirical?" in which he analysed the epistemological status of the rules of propositional logic. Modern philosophers reject quantum logic as a basis for reasoning, because it lacks a material conditional; a common alternative is the system of linear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraordinarily broad range of experiments, there exist a number of contending schools of thought over their interpretation. These views on interpretation differ on such fundamental questions as whether quantum mechanics is deterministic or stochastic, which elements of quantum mechanics can be considered real, and what the nature of measurement is, among other matters. Despite nearly a century of debate and experiment, no consensus has been reached among physicists and philosophers of physics concerning which interpretation best "represents" reality. History The definition of quantum theorists' terms, such as ''wave function'' and ''matrix mechanics'', progressed through many stages. For instance, Erwin Schrödinger originally viewed th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum State
In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that provides a probability distribution for the outcomes of each possible measurement on a system. Knowledge of the quantum state together with the rules for the system's evolution in time exhausts all that can be predicted about the system's behavior. A mixture of quantum states is again a quantum state. Quantum states that cannot be written as a mixture of other states are called pure quantum states, while all other states are called mixed quantum states. A pure quantum state can be represented by a ray in a Hilbert space over the complex numbers, while mixed states are represented by density matrices, which are positive semidefinite operators that act on Hilbert spaces. Pure states are also known as state vectors or wave functions, the latter term applying particularly when they are represented as functions of position or momentum. For example, when dealing with the energy spectrum of the electron in a hydro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orthocomplemented Lattice
In the mathematical discipline of order theory, a complemented lattice is a bounded lattice (with least element 0 and greatest element 1), in which every element ''a'' has a complement, i.e. an element ''b'' satisfying ''a'' ∨ ''b'' = 1 and ''a'' ∧ ''b'' = 0. Complements need not be unique. A relatively complemented lattice is a lattice such that every interval 'c'', ''d'' viewed as a bounded lattice in its own right, is a complemented lattice. An orthocomplementation on a complemented lattice is an involution that is order-reversing and maps each element to a complement. An orthocomplemented lattice satisfying a weak form of the modular law is called an orthomodular lattice. In distributive lattices, complements are unique. Every complemented distributive lattice has a unique orthocomplementation and is in fact a Boolean algebra. Definition and basic properties A complemented lattice is a bounded lattice (with least element 0 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Mackey
George Whitelaw Mackey (February 1, 1916 – March 15, 2006) was an American mathematician known for his contributions to quantum logic, representation theory, and noncommutative geometry. Career Mackey earned his bachelor of arts at Rice University (then the Rice Institute) in 1938 and obtained his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1942 under the direction of Marshall H. Stone. He joined the Harvard University Mathematics Department in 1943, was appointed Landon T. Clay Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Science in 1969 and remained there until he retired in 1985. Work Earlier in his career Mackey did significant work in the duality theory of locally convex spaces, which provided tools for subsequent work in this area, including Alexander Grothendieck's work on topological tensor products. Mackey was one of the pioneer workers in the intersection of quantum logic, the theory of infinite-dimensional unitary representations of groups, the theory of operator algebras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilbert Space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics, typically as function spaces. Formally, a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that defines a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space. The earliest Hilbert spaces were studied from this point of view in the first decade of the 20th century by David Hilbert, Erhard Schmidt, and Frigyes Riesz. They are indispensable tools in the theories of partial differential equations, quantum mechanics, Fourier analysis (which includes applications to signal processing and heat transfer), and ergodic theory (which forms the mathematical underpinning of thermodynamics). John von Neumann coined the term ''Hilbert space'' for the abstract concept that u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Projection (mathematics)
In mathematics, a projection is a mapping of a set (or other mathematical structure) into a subset (or sub-structure), which is equal to its square for mapping composition, i.e., which is idempotent. The restriction to a subspace of a projection is also called a ''projection'', even if the idempotence property is lost. An everyday example of a projection is the casting of shadows onto a plane (sheet of paper): the projection of a point is its shadow on the sheet of paper, and the projection (shadow) of a point on the sheet of paper is that point itself (idempotency). The shadow of a three-dimensional sphere is a closed disk. Originally, the notion of projection was introduced in Euclidean geometry to denote the projection of the three-dimensional Euclidean space onto a plane in it, like the shadow example. The two main projections of this kind are: * The projection from a point onto a plane or central projection: If ''C'' is a point, called the center of projection, then the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Foundations Of Quantum Mechanics
The book ''Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics'' (1932) by John von Neumann is an important early work in the development of quantum theory. Publication history The book was originally published in German in 1932 by Julius Springer, under the title . An English translation by Robert T. Beyer was published in 1955 by Princeton University Press. A Russian translation, edited by N. Bogolyubov, was published by Nauka in 1964. A new English edition, edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler, was published in 2018 by Princeton University Press. Significance The book mainly summarizes results that von Neumann had published in earlier papers. Its main significance may be its argument against the idea of hidden variables, on thermodynamic grounds. See also * Mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics * '' Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods'' References External links {{wikiquote Full online textof the 1932 German edition (facsimile) at the University of Göttingen The Unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncertainty Principle
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, ''x'', and momentum, ''p'', can be predicted from initial conditions. Such variable pairs are known as complementary variables or canonically conjugate variables; and, depending on interpretation, the uncertainty principle limits to what extent such conjugate properties maintain their approximate meaning, as the mathematical framework of quantum physics does not support the notion of simultaneously well-defined conjugate properties expressed by a single value. The uncertainty principle implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are specified. Introduced first in 1927 by the German physicist Werner H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Superposition
Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It states that, much like waves in classical physics, any two (or more) quantum states can be added together ("superposed") and the result will be another valid quantum state; and conversely, that every quantum state can be represented as a sum of two or more other distinct states. Mathematically, it refers to a property of solutions to the Schrödinger equation; since the Schrödinger equation is linear, any linear combination of solutions will also be a solution(s) . An example of a physically observable manifestation of the wave nature of quantum systems is the interference peaks from an electron beam in a double-slit experiment. The pattern is very similar to the one obtained by diffraction of classical waves. Another example is a quantum logical qubit state, as used in quantum information processing, which is a quantum superposition of the "basis states" , 0 \rangle and , 1 \rangle . Here ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operator (quantum Mechanics)
In physics, an operator is a function over a space of physical states onto another space of physical states. The simplest example of the utility of operators is the study of symmetry (which makes the concept of a group useful in this context). Because of this, they are very useful tools in classical mechanics. Operators are even more important in quantum mechanics, where they form an intrinsic part of the formulation of the theory. Operators in classical mechanics In classical mechanics, the movement of a particle (or system of particles) is completely determined by the Lagrangian L(q, \dot, t) or equivalently the Hamiltonian H(q, p, t), a function of the generalized coordinates ''q'', generalized velocities \dot = \mathrm q / \mathrm t and its conjugate momenta: :p = \frac If either ''L'' or ''H'' is independent of a generalized coordinate ''q'', meaning the ''L'' and ''H'' do not change when ''q'' is changed, which in turn means the dynamics of the particle are still the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reduced Planck's Constant
The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, is a fundamental physical constant of foundational importance in quantum mechanics. The constant gives the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and by the mass-energy equivalence, the relationship between mass and frequency. Specifically, a photon's energy is equal to its frequency multiplied by the Planck constant. The constant is generally denoted by h. The reduced Planck constant, or Dirac constant, equal to the constant divided by 2 \pi, is denoted by \hbar. In metrology it is used, together with other constants, to define the kilogram, the SI unit of mass. The SI units are defined in such a way that, when the Planck constant is expressed in SI units, it has the exact value The constant was first postulated by Max Planck in 1900 as part of a solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe. At the end of the 19th century, accurate measurements of the spectrum of black body radiation existed, but the distribution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Routledge Encyclopedia Of Philosophy
The ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' is an encyclopedia of philosophy edited by Edward Craig that was first published by Routledge in 1998 (). Originally published in both 10 volumes of print and as a CD-ROM, in 2002 it was made available online on a subscription basis. The online version is regularly updated with new articles and revisions to existing articles. It has 1,300 contributors providing over 2,000 scholarly articles. – Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Single-volume editions Two single-volume editions of the encyclopedia have been published, ''The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', first published in 1999 (), and ''The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', first published in 2005 (). The ''Concise'' version has the same number of entries as the ten-volume set, each entry in the ''Conci ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
