1 research outputs found
Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function
When suitably generalized and interpreted, the path-integral offers an
alternative to the more familiar quantal formalism based on state-vectors,
selfadjoint operators, and external observers. Mathematically one generalizes
the path-integral-as-propagator to a {\it quantal measure} on the space
of all ``conceivable worlds'', and this generalized measure expresses
the dynamics or law of motion of the theory, much as Wiener measure expresses
the dynamics of Brownian motion. Within such ``histories-based'' schemes new,
and more ``realistic'' possibilities open up for resolving the philosophical
problems of the state-vector formalism. In particular, one can dispense with
the need for external agents by locating the predictive content of in its
sets of measure zero: such sets are to be ``precluded''. But unrestricted
application of this rule engenders contradictions. One possible response would
remove the contradictions by circumscribing the application of the preclusion
concept. Another response, more in the tradition of ``quantum logic'', would
accommodate the contradictions by dualizing to a space of
``co-events'' and effectively identifying reality with an element of this dual
space.Comment: plainTeX, 24 pages, no figures. To appear in a special volume of {\it
Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General} entitled ``The Quantum
Universe'' and dedicated to Giancarlo Ghirardi on the occasion of his 70th
birthday. Most current version is available at
http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may
be