The origin of quantum mechanics from incomplete classical statistics

by Christof WETTERICH (ITP Heidelberg)

Thursday 4 Oct 2001, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Auditorium (CERN)

We formulate classical statistics for situations where only incomplete local information about the probability distribution is available. The simple question about translation invariance of expectation values in a local interval leads, surprisingly, to the discreteness characteristic of quantum mechanics. We show that the quantum mechanical concepts of states and operators arise naturally from the question of how expectation values of local observables can be computed in incomplete statistics. The notions of evolution and time are related to the translation of the available information between neighbouring local regions. The complex structure of quantum mechanics, the superposition of states and the interference effects characteristic for quantum statistics find a simple origin. This suggests the emergence of quantum mechanics from classical statistics with infinitely many degrees of freedom.