G Ludwig - Böcker

This book is the first volume of a two-volume work, which is an improved version of a preprint [47] published in German. We seek to deduce the funda­ mental concepts of quantum mechanics solely from a description of macroscopic devices. The microscopic systems such as electrons, atoms, etc. must be detected on the basis of the macroscopic behavior of the devices. This detection resembles the detection of the dinosaurs on the basis offossils. In this first volume we develop a general description of macroscopic systems by trajectories in state spaces. This general description is a basis for the special de­ scription of devices consisting of two parts, where the first part is acting on the second. The microsystems are discovered as systems transmitting the action. Axioms which describe general empirical structures of the interactions between the two parts of each device, give rise to a derivation of the Hilbert space structure of quantum mechanics. Possibly, these axioms (and consequently the Hilbert space structure) may fail to describe other realms than the structure of atoms and mole­ cules, for instance the "elementary particles". This book supplements ref. [2]. Both together not only give an extensive foundation of quantum mechanics but also a solution in principle of the measuring problem.

This book is the first volume of a two-volume work on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, and is intended as a new edition of the author's book Die Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik [37] which was published in 1954. In this two-volume work we will seek to obtain an improved formulation of the interpretation of quantum mechanics based on experiments. The second volume will appear shortly. Since the publication of [37] there have been several attempts to develop a basis for quantum mechanics which is, in the large part, based upon the work of J. von Neumann [38]. In particular, we mention the books ofG. W. Mackey [39], J. Jauch [40], C. Piron [41], M. Drieschner [9], and the original work ofS. P. Gudder [42], D. J. Foulis and C. H. Randall [43], and N. Zierler [44]. Here we do not seek to compare these different formulations of the foundations of quantum mechanics. We refer interested readers to [45] for such comparisons.

In this second volume on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics we shall show how it is possible, using the methodology presented in Volume I, to deduce some of the most important applications of quantum mechanics. These deductions are concerned with the structures of the micro systems rather than the technical details of the construction of preparation and registration devices. Accordingly, the only new axioms (relative to Volume I) which are introduced are concerned with the relationship between ensemble operators W, effect operators F, and certain construction principles of the preparation and registration devices. The applications described here are concerned with the measurement of atomic and molecular structure and of collision experiments. An additional and essential step towards a theoretical description of the preparation and registration procedures is carried out in Chapter XVII. Here we demonstrate how microscopic collision processes (that is, processes which can be describedby quantum mechanics) can be used to obtain novel preparation and registration procedures if we take for granted the knowledge of only a few macroscopic preparation and registration procedures. By clever use of collision processes we are often able to obtain very precise results for the operators Wand F which describe the total procedures from a very imprecise knowledge of the macroscopic parts of the preparation and regis­ tration processes. In this regard experimental physicists have done brilliant work. In this sense Chapter XVII represents a general theoretical foundation for the procedures used by experimental physicists.