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In the 1970s and 1980s, the theory of decoherence helped to explain the appearance of quasi-classical realities emerging from quantum theory, [53] but was insufficient to provide a technical explanation for the apparent wave function collapse.
The definition of quantum theorists' terms, such as wave function and matrix mechanics, progressed through many stages.For instance, Erwin Schrödinger originally viewed the electron's wave function as its charge density smeared across space, but Max Born reinterpreted the absolute square value of the wave function as the electron's probability density distributed across space; [3]: 24–33 ...
In the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation, quantum mechanics predicts only the probabilities for different observed experimental outcomes. What constitutes an observer or an observation is not directly specified by the theory, and the behavior of a system under measurement and observation is completely different from its usual behavior: the wavefunction that describes a system spreads out into ...
A commonly held interpretation of quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation. [13] In the Copenhagen interpretation, a measurement results in only one state of a superposition. This thought experiment makes apparent the fact that this interpretation simply provides no explanation for the state of the cat while the box is closed.
The quantum-mechanical "Schrödinger's cat" paradox according to the many-worlds interpretation.In this interpretation, every quantum event is a branch point; the cat is both alive and dead, even before the box is opened, but the "alive" and "dead" cats are in different branches of the multiverse, both of which are equally real, but which do not interact with each other.
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum physics might correspond to experienced reality. [3] Decoherence calculations can be done in any interpretation of quantum mechanics, since those calculations are an application of the standard mathematical tools of quantum theory.
In quantum mechanics, the consistent histories or simply "consistent quantum theory" [1] interpretation generalizes the complementarity aspect of the conventional Copenhagen interpretation. The approach is sometimes called decoherent histories [ 2 ] and in other work decoherent histories are more specialized.
The debate on whether this collapse actually occurs is a central problem in interpreting quantum mechanics. The standard solution to the measurement problem is the "Orthodox" or "Copenhagen" interpretation, which claims that the wave function collapses as the result of a measurement by an observer or apparatus external to the quantum system.