CONSISTENT INTERPRETATIONS OF QUANTUM-MECHANICS

Within the last decade, significant progress has been made towards a consistent and complete reformulation of the Copenhagen interpretation (an interpretation consisting in a formulation of the experimental aspects of physics in terms of the basic formalism; it is consistent if free from internal contradiction and complete if it provides precise predictions for all experiments). The main steps involved decoherence (the transition from linear superpositions of macroscopic states to a mixing), Griffiths histories describing the evolution of quantum properties, a convenient logical structure for dealing with histories, and also some progress in semiclassical physics, which was made possible by new methods. The main outcome is a theory of phenomena, viz., the classically meaningful properties of a macroscopic system. It shows in particular how and when determinism is valid. This theory can be used to give a deductive form to measurement theory, which now covers some cases that were initially devised as counter examples against the Copenhagen interpretation. These theories are described, together with their applications to some key experiments and some of their consequences concerning epistemology.