On the sharpness of localization of individual events in space and time (Q2015100): Difference between revisions

Quantum physics and reality: this has been a constant theme of thought and discussion since Bohr and Einstein. Central to Bohr's philosophy is his concept of complementarity. There is the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and Heisenberg's book \textit{Die physikalischen Prinzipien der Quantentheorie} which stimulated the philosophy of quantum physics, based on the questions like: what is the relation between individual events in space-time and the wave function? Haag asks how much we can gather from the theory of localization and points out that decoherence and coarse graining do not provide a sufficient consistent interpretation, certainly not without the principle of \textit{random realization}. Haag points out that first of all there is the task of defining a physical counterpart to the abstract notion of a point in space-time. Second, that there is the question of what the probabilities in quantum physics really refer to. Do they refer to measuring results or to events? Third, there is the question of reality illustrated by Schrödingers cat. All this leads Haag to a critical assessment of the notion of observable and individual facts.