ON KOOPMAN–VON NEUMANN WAVES (Q4547529)

Physicists often argue that the fundamental physical differences between classical and quantum mechanics are reflected in the following mathematical difference. Every measurement returns a real number; in classical mechanics, states can be described by real numbers -- and it is thus not surprising that in classical physics, we can get very accurate measurements of a state without changing this state. In quantum mechanics, it is necessary to use complex numbers to describe states. Since we cannot directly measure complex values (we can only measure real-valued characteristics of these states), it is not surprising that in quantum physics, we cannot measure the state accurately without changing it. The author shows that the very fact of using complex numbers to represent physical states does not necessarily lead to quantum-type non-classical physics. Specifically, the author analyzes the Koopman-von Neumann reformulation of (non-quantum) physics in quantum-style form, where states \(\psi\) are elements of a complex Hilbert space. In spite of the mathematical similarity between the quantum and the classical Hilbert-space formalisms, the dynamic equations are different. In quantum equations, modulus and phase of the corresponding quantum values are interconnected, while in the corresponding classical equations, they are independent: the dynamics of modulus does not effect the dynamics of phase and vice versa. Conclusion: for equations to lead to non-classical physics, it is important that they only be complex-valued, but that these complex-valued equations cannot be decoupled into separate equations for real-valued characteristics (like modulus and phase).