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'''Carol Yager''' ([[1960]]-[[1994]]) holds the distinction of having been the [[obesity|most obese]] person ever to live. When she died in 1994 at the age of 34, she weighed about 1200 [[pound (mass)|pounds]]. Some estimates place her weight at as much as 1600 pounds at her peak, but these are unverified. At death, she was 5'7" tall, and able to fit through her custom-built 48" wide front door, although some sources claim she was more than 5 feet wide.
:''This article is about a formulation of quantum mechanics. For integrals along a path, also known as line or contour integrals, see [[Path integral]].''
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Like others in the 900+ pound weight class, Yager was not able to stand or walk, as her [[muscle]]s were not strong enough to lift her due to [[atrophy]].
{{cleanup-date|October 2005}}
{{expert}}
She lived in Mt Morris Township, near [[Flint, Michigan]], and was cared for by health care professionals, friends, her daughter Heather, and other family members, many of whom visited daily.
The '''path integral formulation''' of [[quantum mechanics]] was developed in 1948 by [[Richard Feynman]]. Some preliminaries were worked out earlier, in the course of his [[doctoral thesis]] work with [[John Archibald Wheeler]]. It is a description of quantum theory which generalizes the [[action (physics)|action principle]] of [[classical mechanics]]. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique history for a system with a sum, or [[functional integral]], over an infinity of possible histories to compute a quantum [[probability amplitude|amplitude]].
Yager claimed to have started her massive weight gain deliberately as a child to discourage the sexual attacks of a "close family member," although in later interviews, she indicated that there were other contributing factors, or "skeletons in my closet", and "monsters" as she was quoted.
This formulation has proved crucial to the subsequent development of theoretical physics, since it provided the basis for the grand synthesis of the 1970's called the [[renormalization group]] which unified [[quantum field theory]] with [[statistical mechanics]]. It is no surprise, therefore, that path integrals have also been used in the study of [[Brownian motion]] and [[diffusion]].
In January, 1993, she was admitted to Hurley Medical Center, weighing-in at 1189 lbs. She suffered from [[cellulitis]] (her skin was breaking down due to the stress of holding in her mass). She stayed in the hospital for three months, where she was restricted to a 1200 [[calorie]] diet, and while there, lost 519 pounds, though most of this was fluid. (Massively obese people often suffer from [[edema]], and their weight can fluctuate with astonishing speed as fluid is taken up or released.) Yager sufferred from many other obesity-related health problems as well, including breathing difficulty, a dangerously high sugar level, and stress on her heart and other organs. Yager's death certificate lists kidney failure as the cause of death, with obesity and multiple organ failure as contributing causes.
[[Image: Three_paths_from_A_to_B.png|thumbnail|250px|These are just three of the paths that contribute to the quantum amplitude for a particle moving from point A at some time t0 to point B at some other time t1.]]
It took a lot of teamwork among as many as 15 - 20 fire fighters and ambulance workers to convey Yager to the [[ambulance]], in relay fashion. One team inside the house would pass her through the doorway to another team on the outside, who would in turn pass her off to another team inside the ambulance, where she would ride on the floor, for her many trips to the hospital (13 times in two years). Eventually, she was moved into the [[nursing home]] where she lived after leaving the hospital. She appeared on the [[Jerry Springer Show]], and was the subject of attention from several [[dieting]] gurus.
==Formulating quantum mechanics==
A short time before her death, Yager's latest boyfriend, Larry Maxwell, who was characterized by her family as being 'an opportunist who courted media attention for money-making possibilities', married her friend, Felicia White. Maxwell had claimed that the only donation in Yager's name he ever received was for $20.00, although numerous talk shows, newspapers, radio stations, and other national and international media are reported to have offered her cash and other gifts in exchange for interviews, pictures, etc. Diet maven [[Richard Simmons]] is said to have been 'angry that Yager's story was actively peddled to tabloid and television media by Maxwell and others'.
The path integral method is an alternative formulation of [[quantum mechanics]]. The canonical approach, pioneered by [[Schroedinger]], [[Heisenberg]] and [[Dirac]] paid great attention to [[wave-particle duality]] and the resulting [[uncertainty principle]] by replacing [[Poisson bracket]]s of [[classical mechanics]] by commutators between operators in [[quantum mechanics]]. The [[Hilbert space]] of [[quantum states]] and the superposition law of quantum amplitudes follows. The path integral starts from the superposition law, and exploits [[wave-particle duality]] to build a generating function for quantum amplitudes.
Yager was buried privately, with about 90 friends and family members attending memorial services.
=== Quantum amplitudes ===
== See also ==
Feynman proposed the following [[postulate]]s:
* [[List of the most obese humans]]
== Sources ==
:1. The [[probability]] for any fundamental event is given by the absolute square of a complex amplitude.
* [http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm Dimensions Magazine, people known to have weighed more than 900 pounds]
* ''Bizarre'' magazine 64, p. 81
* [http://www.mlive.com/fljournal/ The Flint Journal]
* ''The Flint [Michigan] Journal'', Wednesday, August 18, 1993, page A1, "Weight loss brings star status" by Mike Stobbe (Journal health writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Tuesday, May 24, 1994, page C1, "Obese woman's losing bid to lose hits TV show"
* ''The Flint Journal'', Friday, June 17, 1994, page A1, "What next for 1,200-pound woman?" by Marcia Mattson (Journal staff writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Tuesday, July 19, 1994, page A1, "1,200-lb Woman dies" by Marcia Mattson
* ''The Flint Journal'', Wednesday, July 20, 1994, page B1, "Richard Simmons mourns Yager" by Marcia Mattson
* ''The Flint Journal'', Sunday, July 24, 1994, page B1, "1,200-lb. woman more than curiosity" by Ken Palmer (Journal staff writer)
* ''The Flint Journal'', Monday, July 25, 1994, page A6, "Americans must work harder to overcome weight problems"
[[Category:World record holders|Yager, Carol]]
:2. The [[Probability amplitude|amplitude]] for some event is given by adding together all the histories which include that event.
[[Category:Obesity|Yager, Carol]]
[[Category:1960 births|Yager, Carol]]
:3. The amplitude a certain history contributes is proportional to <math> e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}S[L(q,\dot{q},t)]}</math>, where <math>S[L(q,\dot{q},t)]</math> is the [[Action (physics)|action]] of that history, or time integral of the [[Lagrangian]].
[[Category:1994 deaths|Yager, Carol]]
In order to find the overall probability amplitude for a given process, then, one adds up, or [[integral|integrates]], the amplitude of postulate 3 over the space of ''all'' possible histories of the system in between the initial and final states, including histories that are absurd by classical standards. In calculating the amplitude for a single particle to go from one place to another in a given time, it would be correct to include histories in which the particle describes elaborate curlicues, histories in which the particle shoots off into outer space and flies back again, and so forth. The '''path integral''' includes them all. Not only that, it assigns all of them, no matter how bizarre, amplitudes of ''equal size''; only the [[phase]], or argument of the [[complex number]], varies. The contributions wildly different from the classical history are suppressed only by the [[interference]] of similar histories (see below).
Feynman showed that his formulation of quantum mechanics is equivalent to the [[Quantization (physics)|canonical]] approach to quantum mechanics. An amplitude computed according to Feynman's principles will also obey the [[Schrödinger equation]] for the [[Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics)|Hamiltonian]] corresponding to the given action.
Feynman's postulates are somewhat ambiguous in that they do not define what an "event" is or the exact proportionality constant in postulate 3. The proportionality problem can be solved by simply normalizing the path integral by dividing the amplitude by the square root of the total probability for something to happen (resulting in that the total probability given by all the normalized amplitudes will be 1, as we would expect). Generally speaking one can simply define the "events" in an operational sense for any given experiment.
The equal magnitude of all amplitudes in the path integral tends to make it difficult to define it such that it converges and is [[functional integration|mathematically tractable]]. For purposes of actual evaluation of quantities using path-integral methods, it is common to give the action an imaginary part in order to damp the wilder contributions to the integral, then take the limit of a real action at the end of the calculation. In quantum field theory this takes the form of [[Wick rotation]].
There is some difficulty in defining a [[measure theory|measure]] over the space of paths. In particular, the measure is concentrated on "[[fractal|fractal-like]]" [[distribution]]al paths.
=== Recovering the action principle ===
Feynman was initially attempting to make sense of a brief remark by [[Paul Dirac]] about the quantum equivalent of the [[action (physics) | action principle]] in classical mechanics. In the limit of action that is large compared to [[Planck's constant]] <math>\hbar</math>, the path integral is dominated by solutions which are [[stationary point]]s of the action, since there the amplitudes of similar histories will tend to constructively [[interference|interfere]] with one another. Conversely, for paths that are far from being stationary points of the action, the complex phase of the amplitude calculated according to postulate 3 will vary rapidly for similar paths, and amplitudes will tend to cancel. Therefore the important parts of the integral—the significant possibilities—in the limit of large action simply consist of solutions of the [[Euler-Lagrange equation]], and classical mechanics is correctly recovered.
Action principles can seem puzzling to the student of physics because of their seemingly [[teleology|teleological]] quality: instead of predicting the future from initial conditions, one starts with a combination of initial conditions and final conditions and then finds the path in between, as if the system somehow knows where it's going to go. The path integral is one way of understanding why this works. The system doesn't have to know in advance where it's going; the path integral simply calculates the ''probability amplitude'' for a given process, and the stationary points of the action mark neighborhoods of the space of histories for which quantum-mechanical interference will yield large probabilities.
=== Time Slicing Definition ===
For a particle in a smooth potential, the path integral is approximated by Feynman as the small-step limit over [[zig-zag]] paths, which in one dimension is a product of ordinary integrals.
For the motion of the particle from position <math>x_0</math> at time <math>0</math> to <math>x_n</math> at time <math>t</math>, the time interval can be divided up into little segments of fixed duration <math>\Delta t</math>. This process is called time slicing. The path integral can be computed as proportional to
:<math>
\lim_{\Delta t \rightarrow 0, n \rightarrow \infty, n\Delta t=t } \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} dx_1 \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} dx_2 \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} dx_3 \ldots \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} dx_{n-1} \ e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}S(H(x_1,\dots,x_j, t))}
</math>
where <math>H</math> is the entire history in which the particle zigzags from its initial to its final position linearly between all the values of
:<math>x_j = x(j \Delta t)</math>.
In the limit of <math>\Delta t</math> going to zero, this becomes a [[functional integral]].
This limit does not, however, exist for the most important quantum-mechanical systems, the atoms, due to the
singularity of the Coulomb potential <math>e^2/r</math> at the origin. The problem was solved in 1979
by Duru and [[Hagen Kleinert|Kleinert]] (see [http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/kleiner_re65/65.pdf here]
and [http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/kleiner_reb5/psfiles/pthic13.pdf here]) by choosing <math>\Delta t</math> proportional to <math>r</math> and going to new coordinates whose square length is equal to <math>r</math>
([[Duru-Kleinert transformation]]).
=== Particle in Curved Space ===
For a particle in curved space the kinetic term depends on the position an the above time slicing cannot be
applied, this being a manifestation of the notorious [[operator ordering problem]] in Schrödinger quantum mechanics. One may, however, solve this problem by transforming the time-sliced flat-space path integral to curved space using a multivalued coordinate transformation ([[nonholonomic mapping]] explained [http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/b5/psfiles/pthic10.pdf here]).
===The path integral and the partition function===
The path integral is just the generalization of the integral above to all quantum mechanical problems—
:<math>Z = \int Dx e^{iS[x]/\hbar}</math> where <math>S[x]=\int_0^T dt L[x(t)]</math>
is the [[action (physics)|action]] of the classical problem in which one investigates the path starting at time t=0 and ending at time t=T, and Dx denotes integration over all paths. In the classical limit, <math>\hbar\to0</math>, the path of minimum action dominates the integral, because the phase of any path away from this fluctuates rapidly and different contributions cancel.
The connection with [[statistical mechanics]] follows. Perform the [[Wick rotation]] t→it, i.e., make time imaginary. Then the path integral resembles the [[partition function (statistical mechanics)|partition function]] of statistical mechanics defined in a canonical ensemble with temperature <math>1/T\hbar</math>.
Clearly, such a deep analogy between [[quantum mechanics]] and [[statistical mechanics]] cannot be dependent on the formulation. In the canonical formulation, one sees that the unitary evolution operator of a state is given by
:<math>|\alpha;t\rangle=e^{iHt / \hbar}|\alpha;0\rangle</math>
where the state α is evolved from time t=0. If one makes a [[Wick rotation]] here, and finds the amplitude to go from any state, back to the same state in (imaginary) time iT is given by
:<math>Z={\rm Tr} e^{-HT / \hbar}</math>
which is precisely the partition function of [[statistical mechanics]] for the same system at temperature quoted earlier. One aspect of this equivalence was also known to [[Schroedinger]] who remarked that the equation named after him looked like the [[diffusion equation]] after [[Wick rotation]].
== Quantum field theory ==
Today, the most common use of the path-integral formulation is in [[quantum field theory]].
=== The propagator ===
A common use of the path integral is to calculate <math>\langle q_1,t_1|q_0,t_0\rangle</math>, a quantity (here written in [[bra-ket notation]]) known as the [[propagator]]. As such it is very useful in [[quantum field theory]], where the propagator is an important component of [[Feynman diagram]]s. One way to do this, which Feynman used to explain [[photon]] and [[electron]]/[[positron]] propagators in [[quantum electrodynamics]], is to apply the path integral to the motion of a single particle—one, however, that can roam back and forth through ''time'' as well as space in the course of its wanderings. (Such behavior can be reinterpreted as the contribution of the creation and annihilation of [[virtual particle]]-[[antiparticle]] pairs, so in this sense the single-particle restriction has already been loosened.)
=== Functionals of fields ===
However, the path-integral formulation is also extremely important in ''direct'' application to quantum field theory, in which the "paths" or histories being considered are not the motions of a single particle, but the possible time evolutions of a [[field]] over all space. The action is referred to technically as a [[functional (mathematics)|functional]] of the field: <math>S[\phi]</math> where the field <math>\phi (x^\mu)</math> is itself a function of space and time, and the square brackets are a reminder that the action depends on all the field's values everywhere, not just some particular value. In principle, one integrates Feynman's amplitude over the class of all possible combinations of values that the field could have anywhere in [[space-time]].
Much of the formal study of QFT is devoted to the properties of the resulting functional integral, and much effort (not yet entirely successful) has been made toward making these [[functional integral]]s mathematically precise.
Such a functional integral is extremely similar to the [[partition function (statistical mechanics)|partition function]] in [[statistical mechanics]]. Indeed, it is sometimes ''called'' a [[partition function (quantum field theory)|partition function]], and the two are essentially mathematically identical except for the factor of <math>i</math> in the exponent in Feynman's postulate 3. [[Analytic continuation|Analytically continuing]] the integral to an imaginary time variable (called a [[Wick rotation]]) makes the functional integral even more like a statistical partition function, and also tames some of the mathematical difficulties of working with these integrals.
=== Expectation values ===
In [[quantum field theory]], if the [[action (physics)|action]] is given by the [[functional (mathematics)|functional]] S of field configurations (which only depends locally on the fields), then the [[time ordered]] [[vacuum expectation value]] of [[polynomially bounded]] functional ''F'', <''F''>, is given by
:<math>\left\langle F\right\rangle=\frac{\int \mathcal{D}\phi F[\phi]e^{iS[\phi]}}{\int\mathcal{D}\phi e^{iS[\phi]}}</math>
The symbol <math>\int \mathcal{D}\phi</math> here is a concise way to represent the infinite-dimensional integral over all possible field configurations on all of space-time. As stated above, we put the unadorned path integral in the denominator to normalize everything properly.
=== Schwinger-Dyson equations ===
Since this formulation of quantum mechanics is analogous to classical action principles, one might expect that identities concerning the action in classical mechanics would have quantum counterparts derivable from a functional integral. This is often the case.
In the language of functional analysis, we can write the [[Euler-Lagrange equation]]s as <math>\frac{\delta}{\delta \phi}S[\phi]=0</math> (the left-hand side is a [[functional derivative]]; the equation means that the action is stationary under small changes in the field configuration). The quantum analogues of these equations are called the [[Schwinger-Dyson equation]]s.
If the [[functional measure]] <math>\mathcal{D}\phi</math> turns out to be [[translationally invariant]] (we'll assume this for the rest of this article, although this does not hold for, let's say [[nonlinear sigma model]]s) and if we assume that after a [[Wick rotation]]
:<math>e^{iS[\phi]}</math>,
which now becomes
:<math>e^{-H[\phi]}</math>
for some ''H'', goes to zero faster than any [[reciprocal]] of any [[polynomial]] for large values of φ, we can [[integration by parts|integrate by parts]] (after a Wick rotation, followed by a Wick rotation back) to get the following Schwinger-Dyson equations:
:<math>\left\langle \frac{\delta}{\delta \phi}F[\phi] \right\rangle = -i \left\langle F[\phi]\frac{\delta}{\delta\phi}S[\phi] \right\rangle</math>
for any polynomially bounded functional ''F''.
:<math>\left\langle F_{,i} \right\rangle = -i \left\langle F S_{,i} \right\rangle</math>
in the [[deWitt notation]].
These equations are the analog of the [[on shell]] EL equations.
If J (called the [[source field]]) is an element of the [[dual space]] of the field configurations (which has at least an [[affine structure]] because of the assumption of the [[translational invariance]] for the [[functional measure]]), then, the [[generating functional]] Z of the source fields is defined to be:
:<math>Z[J]=\int \mathcal{D}\phi e^{i(S[\phi] + \left\langle J,\phi \right\rangle)}</math>
Note that
:<math>\frac{\delta^n Z}{\delta J(x_1) \cdots \delta J(x_n)}[J] = i^n \, Z[J] \, {\left\langle \phi(x_1)\cdots \phi(x_n)\right\rangle}_J</math>
or
:<math>Z^{,i_1\dots i_n}[J]=i^n Z[J] {\left \langle \phi^{i_1}\cdots \phi^{i_n}\right\rangle}_J</math>
where
:<math>{\left\langle F \right\rangle}_J=\frac{\int \mathcal{D}\phi F[\phi]e^{i(S[\phi] + \left\langle J,\phi \right\rangle)}}{\int\mathcal{D}\phi e^{i(S[\phi] + \left\langle J,\phi \right\rangle)}}</math>
Basically, if <math>\mathcal{D}\phi e^{iS[\phi]}</math> is viewed as a functional distribution (this shouldn't be taken too literally as an interpretation of [[QFT]], unlike its Wick rotated [[statistical mechanics]] analogue, because we have [[time ordering]] complications here!), then <math>\left\langle\phi(x_1)\cdots \phi(x_n)\right\rangle</math> are its [[moment (mathematics)|moments]] and Z is its [[Fourier transform]].
If F is a functional of φ, then for an [[operator]] K, F[K] is defined to be the operator which substitutes K for φ. For example, if
:<math>F[\phi]=\frac{\partial^{k_1}}{\partial x_1^{k_1}}\phi(x_1)\cdots \frac{\partial^{k_n}}{\partial x_n^{k_n}}\phi(x_n)</math>
and G is a functional of J, then
:<math>F\left[-i\frac{\delta}{\delta J}\right] G[J] = (-i)^n \frac{\partial^{k_1}}{\partial x_1^{k_1}}\frac{\delta}{\delta J(x_1)} \cdots \frac{\partial^{k_n}}{\partial x_n^{k_n}}\frac{\delta}{\delta J(x_n)} G[J]</math>.
Then, from the properties of the [[functional integral]]s, we get the "master" [[Schwinger-Dyson equation]]:
:<math>\frac{\delta S}{\delta \phi(x)}\left[-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}\right]Z[J]+J(x)Z[J]=0</math>
or
:<math>S_{,i}[-i\partial]Z+J_i Z=0</math>
If the functional measure is not translationally invariant, it might be possible to express it as the product <math>M\left[\phi\right]\,\mathcal{D}\phi</math> where M is a functional and <math>\mathcal{D}\phi</math> is a translationally invariant measure. This is true, for example, for [[nonlinear sigma model]]s where the [[target space]] is diffeomorphic to <b>R</b><sup>n</sup>. However, if the [[target manifold]] is some topologically nontrivial space, the concept of a translation does not even make any sense.
In that case, we would have to replace the S in this equation by another functional <math>\hat{S}=S-i\ln(M)</math>
If we expand this equation as a [[Taylor series]] about J=0, we get the entire set of [[Schwinger-Dyson equation]]s.
=== Ward-Takahashi identities ===
''See main article [[Ward-Takahashi identity]]''
Now how about the [[on shell]] [[Noether's theorem]] for the classical case? Does it have a quantum analog as well? Yes, but with a caveat. The functional measure would have to be invariant under the one parameter group of symmetry transformation as well.
Let's just assume for simplicity here that the symmetry in question is local (not local in the sense of a [[gauge symmetry]], but in the sense that the transformed value of the field at any given point under an infinitesimal transformation would only depend on the field configuration over an arbitrarily small neighborhood of the point in question). Let's also assume that the action is local in the sense that it is the integral over spacetime of a [[Lagrangian]], and that <math>Q[\mathcal{L}(x)]=\partial_\mu f^\mu (x)</math> for some function f where f only depends locally on φ (and possibly the spacetime position).
If we don't assume any special boundary conditions, this would not be a "true" symmetry in the true sense of the term in general unless f=0 or something. Here, Q is a [[derivation]] which generates the one parameter group in question. We could have [[antiderivation]]s as well, such as [[BRST]] and [[supersymmetry]].
Let's also assume <math>\int \mathcal{D}\phi Q[F][\phi]=0</math> for any polynomially bounded functional F. This property is called the invariance of the measure. And this does not hold in general. See [[anomaly (physics)]] for more details.
Then,
:<math>\int \mathcal{D}\phi Q[F e^{iS}][\phi]=0</math>, which implies
:<math>\left\langle Q[F]\right\rangle +i\left\langle F\int_{\partial V} f^\mu ds_\mu\right\rangle=0</math>
where the integral is over the boundary. This is the quantum analog of Noether's theorem.
Now, let's assume even further that Q is a local integral <math>Q=\int d^dx q(x)</math> where q(x)[φ(y)]=δ<sup>(d)</sup>(x-y)Q[φ(y)] so that <math>q(x)[S]=\partial_\mu j^\mu (x)</math> where <math>j^{\mu}(x)=f^\mu(x)-\frac{\partial}{\partial (\partial_\mu \phi)}\mathcal{L}(x) Q[\phi]</math> (this is assuming the Lagrangian only depends on φ and its first partial derivatives! More general Lagrangians would require a modification to this definition!). Note that we're NOT insisting that q(x) is the generator of a symmetry (i.e. we're NOT insisting upon the gauge principle), but just that Q is. And let's also assume the even stronger assumption that the functional measure is locally invariant:
:<math>\int \mathcal{D}\phi q(x)[F][\phi]=0</math>.
Then, we'd have
:<math>\left\langle q(x)[F] \right\rangle +i\left\langle F q(x)[S]\right\rangle=\left\langle q(x)[F]\right\rangle +i\left\langle F\partial_\mu j^\mu(x)\right\rangle=0</math>
Alternatively,
:<math>q(x)[S][-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}]Z[J]+J(x)Q[\phi(x)][-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}]Z[J]=\partial_\mu j^\mu(x)[-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}]Z[J]+J(x)Q[\phi(x)][-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}]Z[J]=0</math>
The above two equations are the '''Ward-Takahashi identities'''.
Now for the case where f=0, we can forget about all the boundary conditions and locality assumptions. We'd simply have
:<math>\left\langle Q[F]\right\rangle =0</math>.
Alternatively,
:<math>\int d^dx J(x)Q[\phi(x)][-i \frac{\delta}{\delta J}]Z[J]=0</math>
== The path integral in quantum-mechanical interpretation ==
In one philosophical [[interpretation of quantum mechanics]], the "sum over histories" interpretation, the path integral is taken to be fundamental and reality is viewed as a single indistinguishable "class" of paths which all share the same events. For this interpretation, it is crucial to understand what exactly an event is. The sum over histories method gives identical results to canonical quantum mechanics, and Sinha and Sorkin claim the interpretation explains the [[Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox]] without resorting to [[nonlocality]].
Some advocates of interpretations of quantum mechanics emphasizing [[decoherence]] have attempted to make more rigorous the notion of extracting a classical-like "coarse-grained" history from the space of all possible histories.
== References ==
* Feynman, R. P., and Hibbs, A. R., ''Quantum Physics and Path Integrals'', New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. ISBN 0-070-20650-3
* Glimm, James, and Jaffe, Arthur, ''Quantum Physics: A Functional Integral Point of View'', New York: Springer-Verlag, 1981. ISBN 0-387-90562-6
* Pokorski, Stefan, ''Gauge Field Theories'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-521-36846-4
* Sakurai, J. J., ''Modern Quantum Mechanics'', Tuan, San Fu, ed. Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley, 1985. ISBN 0-8053-7501-5
* Sinha, Sukanya and Sorkin, Rafael Dolnick. "A Sum-over-histories Account of an EPR(B) Experiment". ''Foundations of Physics Letters'', 4:303-335, 1991. ''(also available online: [http://physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/63.eprb.ps PostScript])''
* Hagen Kleinert, ''Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, Statistics, Polymer Physics, and Financial Markets'', 4th edition, World Scientific (Singapore, [[2004]]); Paperback ISBN 981-238-107-4 '' (also available online: [http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/b5 PDF-files])''
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