Talk:Observable (quantum computation)

Article Checklist for "Observable (quantum computation)"

Workgroup category or categories	Physics Workgroup, Mathematics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Charles Blackham 10:52, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Ambiguous language

In the section titled Algebra, we find the following: "A physical system is described by its static constitution, dynamics and expectation function. These three ... may be used to calculate the outcome of particular experiments or computations." This language can at least be interpreted as implying the experiments and computations are the same thing. Is that intended? Greg Woodhouse 10:26, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Quantum mechanics or quantum computation?

A more basic issue is that this entire article is framed in terms of quantum computation (for example, noting that David Deutsch uses the MWI, but failing to it was introduced by Everett). The article may be intended to provide background material for quantum computation, but is of more general significance, and should be written in the wider context of quantum theory. Greg Woodhouse 10:35, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

I still maintain that this article should not be specific to quantum computation but focus on quantum theory more generally. Try this: An observable is an operator that projects (orthogonally) onto the space spanned by the pure states corresponding possible observed values. That's just a shot in the dark, though. I'm still trying to come up with a definition that doesn't sound like "wave function collapse". Greg Woodhouse 21:34, 14 June 2007 (CDT)