Single-world interpretations of quantum theory cannot be self-consistent

Authors: Daniela Frauchiger, Renato Renner

Nature Communications 9, 3711 (2018)
arXiv: 1604.07422v1 - DOI (quant-ph)
25 pages, 4 figures; comments are very welcome

Abstract: According to quantum theory, a measurement may have multiple possible outcomes. Single-world interpretations assert that, nevertheless, only one of them "really" occurs. Here we propose a gedankenexperiment where quantum theory is applied to model an experimenter who herself uses quantum theory. We find that, in such a scenario, no single-world interpretation can be logically consistent. This conclusion extends to deterministic hidden-variable theories, such as Bohmian mechanics, for they impose a single-world interpretation.

Submitted to arXiv on 25 Apr. 2016

Explore the paper tree

Click on the tree nodes to be redirected to a given paper and access their summaries and virtual assistant

Also access our AI generated Summaries, or ask questions about this paper to our AI assistant.

Look for similar papers (in beta version)

By clicking on the button above, our algorithm will scan all papers in our database to find the closest based on the contents of the full papers and not just on metadata. Please note that it only works for papers that we have generated summaries for and you can rerun it from time to time to get a more accurate result while our database grows.