22 questions linked to/from Why are Only Real Things Measurable?
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Why is $i$ used in the equations for quantum mechanics? [duplicate]

Coming from someone who knows a tiny bit about the subject but who really wants to learn. I know it's the square root of -1 but I would like some insight as to why it's used at all.
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On the spectrum of a quantum mechanical system [duplicate]

Can the spectrum of a quantum mechanical operator contain both real and complex numbers?
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Do imaginary measurements exists? [duplicate]

I'm sorry if this question is too metaphysical, but I will give it a try. My textbook in introductory quantum mechanics is basing a lot of its proof and derivations on the fact that the value of the ...
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1 vote
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Is there any anti-hermitian operator in quantum mechanics? [duplicate]

I know what are Hermitian operators and anti-hermitian operators.but as i have studied quantum mechanics most of the operators we had dealt with them are hermitian and this question popped up in my ...
27k views

QM without complex numbers

I am trying to understand how complex numbers made their way into QM. Can we have a theory of the same physics without complex numbers? If so, is the theory using complex numbers easier?
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About the complex nature of the wave function?

1. Why is the wave function complex? I've collected some layman explanations but they are incomplete and unsatisfactory. However in the book by Merzbacher in the initial few pages he provides an ...
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Can one do the maths of physics without using $\sqrt{-1}$?

The use of imaginary and complex values comes up in many physics and engineering derivations. I have a question about that: Is the use of complex numbers simply to make the process of derivation ...
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Must observables be Hermitian only because we want real eigenvalues, or is more to that?

Because (after long university absence) I recently came across field operators again in my QFT lectures (which are not necessarily Hermitian): What problem is there with observables represented by non-...
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Why do we use Hermitian operators in QM?

Position, momentum, energy and other observables yield real-valued measurements. The Hilbert-space formalism accounts for this physical fact by associating observables with Hermitian ('self-adjoint') ...
2k views

How can the commutator operation not be transitive?

I noticed the following: $$[L_{+},L^2]=0,\qquad [L_{+},L_3]\neq 0,\qquad [L^2,L_3]=0.$$ This would suggest, that $L^2,L_+$ have a common system of eigenfunctions, and so do $L^2,L_3$, but $L_+,L_3$ ...
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4k views

Why hermitian, after all? [duplicate]

This question is going to look a lot like a duplicate, but I've read dozens of related posts and they don't touch the subject. Here we go. Why are observables represented by hermitian operators? ...
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3k views

What is the point of complex fields in classical field theory?

I see a lot of books/lectures about classical field theory making use of complex scalar fields. However why complex fields are used in the first place is often not really motivated. Sometimes one can ...
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Why is there a physical preference to real numbers?

In quantum mechanics, operators can only be observables if the eigenfunctions they operate on have real eigenvalues. If they are complex, I am told that, surely, some observable of a physical system ...
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4k views

Can expectation value be imaginary?

I was solving a problem and the result of the expectation value of an operator came out to be $-\frac{\hbar}{4}$ $i$. Is this result possible? It seems counter intuitive.
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On the "reality" of the wavefunction, there seem to be two schools of thought on why treating $\psi$ as something more than a mathematical tool is erroneous: $\psi$ involves complex numbers. Only ...