Abstract
The fundamental problem considered is that of the existence of a joint probability distribution for momentum and position at a given instant. The philosophical interest of this problem is that for the potential energy functions (or Hamiltonians) corresponding to many simple experimental situations, the joint “distribution” derived by the methods of Wigner (1932) and Moyal (1949) is not a genuine probability distribution at all.
Reprinted from Philosophy of Science 28 (1961), 378–389.
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Notes
Henceforth the range of integration is understood to be (— GO, co) and notation for it is omitted.
I am indebted to Sidney Drell and Raymond Willey for some helpful suggestions concerning these two examples.
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© 1969 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Suppes, P. (1969). Probability Concepts in Quantum Mechanics. In: Studies in the Methodology and Foundations of Science. Synthese Library, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3173-7_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3173-7_13
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