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arxiv: 1605.08177 · v4 · pith:Y5CJ4YGEnew · submitted 2016-05-26 · 🪐 quant-ph

Quantum mechanics: The Bayesian theory generalised to the space of Hermitian matrices

classification 🪐 quant-ph
keywords quantumtheorybayesianmechanicsgeneralisedruleshermitianmatrices
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We consider the problem of gambling on a quantum experiment and enforce rational behaviour by a few rules. These rules yield, in the classical case, the Bayesian theory of probability via duality theorems. In our quantum setting, they yield the Bayesian theory generalised to the space of Hermitian matrices. This very theory is quantum mechanics: in fact, we derive all its four postulates from the generalised Bayesian theory. This implies that quantum mechanics is self-consistent. It also leads us to reinterpret the main operations in quantum mechanics as probability rules: Bayes' rule (measurement), marginalisation (partial tracing), independence (tensor product). To say it with a slogan, we obtain that quantum mechanics is the Bayesian theory in the complex numbers.

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Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. A decision-theoretic approach to dealing with uncertainty in quantum mechanics

    quant-ph 2025-03 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    A decision-theoretic model is developed in which quantum measurements act as uncertain decisions whose utilities encode Born's rule, enabling an imprecise-probabilities treatment of quantum uncertainty.