Watching the Clocks: Interpreting the Page–Wootters Formalism and the Internal Quantum Reference Frame Programme

Foundations of Physics 52 (5):1-49 (2022)
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Abstract

We discuss some difficulties that arise in attempting to interpret the Page–Wootters and Internal Quantum Reference Frames formalisms, then use a ‘final measurement’ approach to demonstrate that there is a workable single-world realist interpretation for these formalisms. We note that it is necessary to adopt some interpretation before we can determine if the ‘reference frames’ invoked in these approaches are operationally meaningful, and we argue that without a clear operational interpretation, such reference frames might not be suitable to define an equivalence principle. We argue that the notion of superposition should take into account the way in which an instantaneous state is embedded in ongoing dynamical evolution, and this leads to a more nuanced way of thinking about the relativity of superposition in these approaches. We conclude that typically the operational content of these approaches appears only in the limit as the size of at least one reference system becomes large, and therefore these formalisms have an important role to play in showing how our macroscopic reference frames can emerge out of wholly relational facts.

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Emily Adlam
Western University

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References found in this work

The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics.Simon Kochen & E. P. Specker - 1967 - Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17:59--87.
Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time.Tim Maudlin - 2012 - Princeton University Press.
Relational quantum mechanics.Carlo Rovelli - 1996 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 35 (8):1637--1678.
On the electrodynamics of moving bodies.Albert Einstein - 1920 - In The Principle of Relativity. [Calcutta]: Dover Publications. pp. 35-65.

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