nucleation

LIT-1635: Relational Quantum Mechanics

1 min read

Properties5
StatusActive — read in full 2026-10-27 (NOTE-1227), in arXiv v2; worth reading as the founding statement of RQM: the two-description analysis of one measurement, values relative to any physical system, no deducible relation between views and no description in toto, and an information reconstruction it calls "not fully successful". It keeps systems prior to their relational values, as an assumption: each is characterized by its question set W(S) and capacity N, and the decomposition may vary. It has no ontology of events; that is later.
Version2
Tagsquantum-foundations, metaphysics
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1227 — Rovelli — Relational quantum mechanics
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-1068 — In the founding statement of relational quantum mechanics the states and values of systems are relative to other systems, but the systems are not: the world is assumed decomposed, possibly in several ways, into systems each characterized by the questions that can be asked of it and a finite information capacity, so the relata precede the relations, as an assumption and without an ontology of events, THEORY-1080 — In relational quantum mechanics as Rovelli first stated it, the relation between two observers' descriptions is itself a quantum fact relative to a third system, so no observer's view can be deduced from another's and there is no description in toto, only a net of partial descriptions; the views are held consistent only in that the third system predicts correlated outcomes, which is shown for a single measurement and asserted in general, THEORY-1222 — In relational quantum mechanics as stated in Rovelli (1996), rules (i) and (ii), that there is no state except within a further observer's information and no information without interaction, exclude any contradiction between observers' views: what a third system predicts of two observers' information always agrees with what it finds on interacting with them

Graph View

Rovelli, C. (1996). Relational quantum mechanics. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 35(8), 1637–1678. doi:10.1007/BF02302261. arXiv:quant-ph/9609002.

Read in full on 2026-10-27 (NOTE-1227).

Why this is here

A3 put it among the three positions closest to the owner’s U2 argument (“quantum variables acquire values relative to other physical systems through interactions”) and fourth in its reading order. Faye and Jaksland (LIT-1672) argue it does not entail Barad’s holism: values are relational, but the systems that interact are not constituted by the interaction. The record holds Rovelli’s later account (LIT-177), read; this is the founding paper.

Backlinks