Demystifier
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Yes, but exact words are very important in this context. For instance, in the explanation above you don't mention that collapse has anything to do with interaction, while in another post you do. Similarly, in the explanation above you use the word "immediately", while some textbook may not use that word. It also matters whether one talks about "measurement" or about "observation". Depending on the exact words, the connotations may take different flavors.vanhees71 said:In nearly any introductory textbook you find the collapse postulate, i.e., it says that if you make a measurement of an observable ##A## and find a value ##a## which is necessarily in the spectrum of the representing self-adjoint operator ##\hat{A}## and if ##|a,\beta \rangle## is a complete orthonormal basis of the eigenspace to ##a## and the system as been prepared in the state represented by ##|\psi \rangle##, then after the measurement the system is immediately in the state
$$|\psi' \rangle = \sum_{\beta} |a,\beta \rangle \langle a,\beta|\psi \rangle.$$
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