Why does the wavefunction 'collapse' in relational approaches to quantum mechanics?
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2604.12094 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 13 Apr 2026] Title:Why does the wavefunction 'collapse' in relational approaches to quantum mechanics? Authors:Emily Adlam View a PDF of the paper titled Why does the wavefunction 'collapse' in relational approaches to quantum mechanics?, by Emily Adlam View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:I argue that there is a straightforward way to understand the occurrence of wavefunction collapses or 'quantum events' in relational approaches to quantum mechanics: we necessarily encounter a discontinuity in our description when a system interacts with the reference relative to which we are describing it, since the reference system cannot be described relative to itself. This makes it clear how recent concerns around quantum events in relational quantum mechanics should be resolved. However, the solution requires accepting that quantum mechanics is not a complete description of all physical facts, and moreover I argue that this is most likely inevitable if we want to be able to give a precise description of quantum events. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.12094 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2604.12094v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.12094 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Emily Adlam [view email] [v1] Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:09:34 UTC (26 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Why does the wavefunction 'collapse' in relational approaches to quantum mechanics?, by Emily AdlamView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: physics physics.hist-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)