Decoherent Histories Quantum Mechanics
Commentary
This page contains the author's writings that are concerned with the relation of decoherent histories quantum mechanics to the textbook (Copenhagen) quantum mechanics of measurement outcomes. It also contains the few writings on the framework's implications for issues that have widely discussed in papers on the foundations of quantum mechanics.
The Copenhagen Approximation [Cop]
Copenhagen quantum mechanics is a highly successful framework for physical prediction. It is not an alternative to DH. Rather it is contained within DH as an approximation appropriate to measurement situations. Two excerpts from various lectures show how this approximation comes about.
Decohering Histories Quantum Mechanics and Copenhagen Quantum Mechanics [cop2]
(with Murray Gell-Mann) A more detailed and broader ranging examination of the connection with Copenhagen quantum mechanics than the above.
Quantum Mechanics and Human Language [136]
Human language is naturally adapted to the quasiclassical realm that almost entirely describes everyday experience. Care is therefore necessary when using human language to describe DH which in general has many mutually incompatible decoherent sets of histories. The surest route to clarity is to express the constructions of human language in the the language of DH, not the other way around.
Buzzwords [buzz]
The author's discussion of the meaning of phrases like ``reduction of the wave packet'', ``many worlds'', ``non-locality'', ``state'', etc.