Description of Experiments in Physics: A Dynamical Approach

Abstract

A way of describing repetitive experiments can be founded on the notions of the theory of dynamical systems. Dynamical invariants of a stationary system decompose its set of trajectories. Asymptotic statistical behaviour is uniform within a component which is not further decomposed by an invariant. The time average probabilities of classical systems become limits of relative frequencies when time and state space are discretized. A complete set of invariants is replaced by a parametric family of probability distributions. The parameters are precisely those factors the control of which specifies statistical laws of the repetitive experiment. Various ways of interpreting stationary probabilities are suggested, these interpretations depending on whether parameters exist, have been identified, or are randomized over.