Abstract
IN his article on "Causality or Indeterminism?" in Nature of March 10, Prof. H. T. H. Piaggio refers to the restriction on quantum mechanical operators made by the condition that they be hypermaximal, and suggests that this conceals important requirements. In fact, the literature on the subject does not discuss the physical meaning of this requirement. Dirac, in his "Principles of Quantum Mechanics", substitutes the condition that "only those Hermitian operators that satisfy the expansion theorem represent observables": this is mathematically equivalent to hypermaximality, but also has no clear physical meaning.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
COOPER, J. Operators in Quantum Theory. Nature 156, 54 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156054a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156054a0
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.