Although the two Schrödinger equations form an important part of quantum mechanics, it is possible to present the subject in a more general way. Dirac gave an elegant exposition of an axiomatic approach based on observables and states in a classic textbook entitled The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. (The book, published in 1930, is still in print.) An observable is anything that can be measured—energy, position, a component of angular momentum, and so forth. Every observable has a set of states, each state being represented by an algebraic function. With each state is associated a number that gives the result of a measurement of the observable. Consider an observable with N states, denoted by ψ₁, ψ₂, . . ., ψ_N, and corresponding measurement values a₁, a₂, . . ., a_N. A physical system—e.g., an atom in a particular state—is represented by a wave function Ψ, which can be expressed as a linear combination, or mixture, of the states of the observable. Thus, the Ψ may be written asFor a given Ψ, the quantities c₁, c₂, etc., are a set of numbers that can be calculated. In general, the numbers are complex, but, in the present discussion, they are assumed to be real numbers.

The theory postulates, first, that the result of a measurement must be an a-value—i.e., a₁, a₂, or a₃, etc. No other value is possible. Second, before the measurement is made, the probability of obtaining the value a₁ is c₁², and that of obtaining the value a₂ is c₂², and so on. If the value obtained is, say, a₅, the theory asserts that after the measurement the state of the system is no longer the original Ψ but has changed to ψ₅, the state corresponding to a₅.

A number of consequences follow from these assertions. First, the result of a measurement cannot be predicted with certainty. Only the probability of a particular result can be predicted, even though the initial state (represented by the function Ψ) is known exactly. Second, identical measurements made on a large number of identical systems, all in the identical state Ψ, will produce different values for the measurements. This is, of course, quite contrary to classical physics and common sense, which say that the same measurement on the same object in the same state must produce the same result. Moreover, according to the theory, not only does the act of measurement change the state of the system, but it does so in an indeterminate way. Sometimes it changes the state to ψ₁, sometimes to ψ₂, and so forth.

There is an important exception to the above statements. Suppose that, before the measurement is made, the state Ψ happens to be one of the ψs—say, Ψ = ψ₃. Then c₃ = 1 and all the other cs are zero. This means that, before the measurement is made, the probability of obtaining the value a₃ is unity and the probability of obtaining any other value of a is zero. In other words, in this particular case, the result of the measurement can be predicted with certainty. Moreover, after the measurement is made, the state will be ψ₃, the same as it was before. Thus, in this particular case, measurement does not disturb the system. Whatever the initial state of the system, two measurements made in rapid succession (so that the change in the wave function given by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is negligible) produce the same result.

The value of one observable can be determined by a single measurement. The value of two observables for a given system may be known at the same time, provided that the two observables have the same set of state functions ψ₁, ψ₂, . . ., ψ_N. In this case, measuring the first observable results in a state function that is one of the ψs. Because this is also a state function of the second observable, the result of measuring the latter can be predicted with certainty. Thus the values of both observables are known. (Although the ψs are the same for the two observables, the two sets of a values are, in general, different.) The two observables can be measured repeatedly in any sequence. After the first measurement, none of the measurements disturbs the system, and a unique pair of values for the two observables is obtained.

Incompatible observables

The measurement of two observables with different sets of state functions is a quite different situation. Measurement of one observable gives a certain result. The state function after the measurement is, as always, one of the states of that observable; however, it is not a state function for the second observable. Measuring the second observable disturbs the system, and the state of the system is no longer one of the states of the first observable. In general, measuring the first observable again does not produce the same result as the first time. To sum up, both quantities cannot be known at the same time, and the two observables are said to be incompatible.

1 of 2

2 of 2

A specific example of this behaviour is the measurement of the component of angular momentum along two mutually perpendicular directions. The Stern-Gerlach experiment mentioned above involved measuring the angular momentum of a silver atom in the ground state. In reconstructing this experiment, a beam of silver atoms is passed between the poles of a magnet. The poles are shaped so that the magnetic field varies greatly in strength over a very small distance (Figure 2). The apparatus determines the m_s quantum number, which can be +1/2 or −1/2. No other values are obtained. Thus in this case the observable has only two states—i.e., N = 2. The inhomogeneous magnetic field produces a force on the silver atoms in a direction that depends on the spin state of the atoms. The result is shown schematically in Figure 3. A beam of silver atoms is passed through magnet A. The atoms in the state with m_s = +1/2 are deflected upward and emerge as beam 1, while those with m_s = −1/2 are deflected downward and emerge as beam 2. If the direction of the magnetic field is the x-axis, the apparatus measures S_x, which is the x-component of spin angular momentum. The atoms in beam 1 have S_x = +ℏ/2 while those in beam 2 have S_x = −ℏ/2. In a classical picture, these two states represent atoms spinning about the direction of the x-axis with opposite senses of rotation.

The y-component of spin angular momentum S_y also can have only the values +ℏ/2 and −ℏ/2; however, the two states of S_y are not the same as for S_x. In fact, each of the states of S_x is an equal mixture of the states for S_y, and conversely. Again, the two S_y states may be pictured as representing atoms with opposite senses of rotation about the y-axis. These classical pictures of quantum states are helpful, but only up to a certain point. For example, quantum theory says that each of the states corresponding to spin about the x-axis is a superposition of the two states with spin about the y-axis. There is no way to visualize this; it has absolutely no classical counterpart. One simply has to accept the result as a consequence of the axioms of the theory. Suppose that, as in Figure 3, the atoms in beam 1 are passed into a second magnet B, which has a magnetic field along the y-axis perpendicular to x. The atoms emerge from B and go in equal numbers through its two output channels. Classical theory says that the two magnets together have measured both the x- and y-components of spin angular momentum and that the atoms in beam 3 have S_x = +ℏ/2, S_y = +ℏ/2, while those in beam 4 have S_x = +ℏ/2, S_y = −ℏ/2. However, classical theory is wrong, because if beam 3 is put through still another magnet C, with its magnetic field along x, the atoms divide equally into beams 5 and 6 instead of emerging as a single beam 5 (as they would if they had S_x = +ℏ/2). Thus, the correct statement is that the beam entering B has S_x = +ℏ/2 and is composed of an equal mixture of the states S_y = +ℏ/2 and S_y = −ℏ/2—i.e., the x-component of angular momentum is known but the y-component is not. Correspondingly, beam 3 leaving B has S_y = +ℏ/2 and is an equal mixture of the states S_x = +ℏ/2 and S_x = −ℏ/2; the y-component of angular momentum is known but the x-component is not. The information about S_x is lost because of the disturbance caused by magnet B in the measurement of S_y.