Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / October 2007

Probable Causation/Influence (PI) regards Non-Markovian scenarios as
more Causal than Markovian ones because Markovian ones originate from
one-step-at-a-time ("memoryless" or "one-step-behind memory") Markov
chains which in turn are only slightly ahead of Independent
Probability-Statistics which are usually very low in Causation.

PI also is based on Continuous scenarios throughout its fundamental
definitions and theorems (rather than discrete or partly discrete
scenarios).

Lajos Diosi of the Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics
Hungary, in "Non-Markovian continuous quantum measurement of retarded
observables," arXiv: 0710.5489 v1 [quant-ph] 29 Dec 2007, 4 pages (2
columns), proves the importance of the Non-Markovian Continuous
scenario of time measurement of a Heisenberg observable and show that
it can be realized by a set of entangled von Neumann detectors.

A few things other than the above are especially noteworthy about
Diosi's paper.

1) Diosi's research was not followed through by the "establishment" to
such a degree that he himself began to doubt it somewhat after
publishing first in Phys. Rev. A 42, 5086 (1990).  His persistence and
that of W. T. Strunz has finally won out, as for example in his 2007
paper cited.  This is reminiscent of David Ruelle's (of chaos)
experiences with "publish or perish" described in his little book
Chance and Chaos of some years back (I keep losing the year and
publisher, but readers can easily find it via the internet).

2) The factors 1/2 and 2 of PI (see the last few Sections of this
thread) again play key roles in the equations of Diosi, including
equations (4), (7), (18), (21), etc.

Osher Doctorow