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An initial segment of the von Neumann universe. Ordinal multiplication is reversed from our usual convention; see Ordinal arithmetic.. The cumulative hierarchy is a collection of sets V α indexed by the class of ordinal numbers; in particular, V α is the set of all sets having ranks less than α.
In quantum mechanics, each physical system is associated with a Hilbert space, each element of which represents a possible state of the physical system.The approach codified by John von Neumann represents a measurement upon a physical system by a self-adjoint operator on that Hilbert space termed an "observable".
The von Neumann universe is built from a cumulative hierarchy . The sets L α {\displaystyle \mathrm {L} _{\alpha }} of the constructible universe form a cumulative hierarchy. The Boolean-valued models constructed by forcing are built using a cumulative hierarchy.
Description: Graphical view of Von Neumann hierarchy: Date: 21 October 2007: Source: own-made, with Kig (contact me if you want the file), Inkscape and a text editor to correct the offset
For classical systems, the value f(x), that is the value of f for some particular system state x, is obtained by a process of measurement of f. The propositions concerning a classical system are generated from basic statements of the form "Measurement of f yields a value in the interval [a, b] for some real numbers a, b."
The characteristic property of the von Neumann measurement scheme is that repeating the same measurement will give the same results. This is also called the projection postulate. A more general formulation replaces the projection-valued measure with a positive-operator valued measure (POVM). To illustrate, take again the finite-dimensional case.
A major contribution von Neumann made to measure theory was the result of a paper written to answer a question of Haar regarding whether there existed an algebra of all bounded functions on the real number line such that they form "a complete system of representatives of the classes of almost everywhere-equal measurable bounded functions". [117]
For example, in the spin 1/2 example discussed above, the system can be prepared in the state ψ by using measurement of σ 1 as a filter that retains only those particles such that σ 1 yields +1. By the von Neumann (so-called) postulates, immediately after the measurement the system is assuredly in the state ψ.