Abstract
Ben-Israel and Vaidman (Found Phys 47:467–470, 2017) have raised objections to my arguments that there are cases where a quantum mechanical weak value can be said not to represent the system to which it pertains. They are correct in pointing out that some of my conclusions were too general. However, for weak values of projection operators my conclusions still stand.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
An analogy to this situation, although not a perfect one, could be an ordinary function f(x) which for small \(x > 0\) has an expansion \(f(x) = a x + 0(x^{2})\). It is continuous at x = 0. But now consider instead (1 / x)f(x). Then \({lim}_{x \rightarrow 0}[(1/x) f(x)] = a\), while for \(x = 0 \) the expression (1 / x)f(x) is undefined = 0/0 .
References
Ben-Israel, A., Vaidman, L.: Comment on ‘Non-representative quantum mechanical weak values’. Found. Phys. 47, 467–470 (2017). doi:10.1007/s10701-017-0071-x
Svensson, B.E.Y.: Non-representative quantum mechanical weak values. Found. Phys. 45, 1645–1656 (2015)
Svensson, B.E.Y.: Quantum weak values and logic, an uneasy couple. Found. Phys. 47, 430–452 (2017). doi:10.1007/s10701-017-0068-5
Aharonov, Y., Popescu, S., Rohrlich, D., Skrzypczyk, P.: Quantum cheshire cats. New J. Phys. 15, 113015 (2013)
Vaidman, L.: Past of a quantum particle. Phys. Rev. 87, 052104 (2013)
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Johan Bijnens for a careful reading of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Svensson, B.E.Y. Response to Comment on ‘Non-representative Quantum Mechanical Weak Values’ by Ben-Israel and Vaidman. Found Phys 47, 1258–1260 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-017-0108-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-017-0108-1