Astronomy   View all facts   Glossary   Help

abstraction > hypothesis > theory > physics theory > quantum mechanics > quantum mechanics interpretation

quantum mechanics interpretation comparison table

Subject	has definition	has author
Copenhagen interpretation	The view of quantum mechanics holding that prior to the measurement, a system has no physical existence and is describable only in terms of the probability of each possible result of a measurement. After a measurement the physical system exists in one and only one of its possible states.	or reasearch group
many-worlds interpretation	The view of quantum mechanics holding that a physical system simultaneously exists in all of its possible states prior to and after a measurement of the system. In the many-worlds interpretation, each of these simultaneous existences is part of a separate universe. Every time we make a measurement of a physical system and find it to be in a particular one of its possible states, our universe branches off to one of the universes in which the system is in that particular state at that moment. The system, however, continues to exist in its other possible states, in parallel universes.	Everett and Wheeler

Next quantum mechanics: quantum field theory    Up: quantum mechanics