I Common features of set theory and wave functions?

Hallucinogen
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
I would like to know if any of you think there's any sort of connection, analogy, or common features between, sets in set theory and wave functions in QT?

Wave functions lack trajectories, so do sets. Wave functions also distribute over areas, as sets can do. To my understanding, wave functions are also subject to decomposition; for example, an atom has an associated wave function, and this can decompose into the associated wave functions of the particles atoms are believed to be composed of. In exactly the same way, we can view the atom as a set, containing subatomic particles as its elements.

As such sets of objects may correspond to unique superpositions.

I would like to know if I am correct in my analysis and if anyone knows of any explicit common features or properties of mathematical sets and wave functions?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The only common feature is that you can define any function by sets. I think your comparison is too far-fetched to make any sense.
 
  • Like
Likes Hallucinogen
Hallucinogen said:
I would like to know if any of you think there's any sort of connection, analogy, or common features between, sets in set theory and wave functions in QT?
In this lecture at 1:17:20 and forwards (Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Quantum Mechanics (Stanford)) Leonard Susskind describes the differences between the states in classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Basically, states in classical mechanics are points in a set (phase space). In quantum mechanics states do not form sets. Instead, states are vectors in vector spaces over the complex numbers.
 
  • Like
Likes Hallucinogen
A vector space is a set of elements together with a field (like the real or complex numbers) called vectors with some algebraic operations defined on these sets. Today nearly everything in math is based on set theory.
 
  • Like
Likes Hallucinogen and Klystron
DennisN said:
In this lecture at 1:17:20 and forwards (Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Quantum Mechanics (Stanford)) Leonard Susskind describes the differences between the states in classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Basically, states in classical mechanics are points in a set (phase space). In quantum mechanics states do not form sets. Instead, states are vectors in vector spaces over the complex numbers.

thanks
 
Not an expert in QM. AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is quite different from the classical wave equation. The former is an equation for the dynamics of the state of a (quantum?) system, the latter is an equation for the dynamics of a (classical) degree of freedom. As a matter of fact, Schrödinger's equation is first order in time derivatives, while the classical wave equation is second order. But, AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is a wave equation; only its interpretation makes it non-classical...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
Is it possible, and fruitful, to use certain conceptual and technical tools from effective field theory (coarse-graining/integrating-out, power-counting, matching, RG) to think about the relationship between the fundamental (quantum) and the emergent (classical), both to account for the quasi-autonomy of the classical level and to quantify residual quantum corrections? By “emergent,” I mean the following: after integrating out fast/irrelevant quantum degrees of freedom (high-energy modes...
Back
Top