Following an article by John von Neumann on infinite tensor products, we
develop the idea that the usual formalism of quantum mechanics, associated with
unitary equivalence of representations, stops working when countable infinities
of particles (or degrees of freedom) are encountered. This is because the
dimension of the corresponding Hilbert space becomes uncountably infinite,
leading to the loss of unitary equivalence, and to sectorization. By
interpreting physically this mathematical fact, we show that it provides a
natural way to describe the "Heisenberg cut", as well as a unified mathematical
model including both quantum and classical physics, appearing as required
incommensurable facets in the description of nature.Comment: 13 pages, no figure. In v2 some clarifications adde