ABSTRACT
Classical and quantum physics both make considerable use of the expressions "physical system" and "state of a physical system." Indeed, any sufficiently isolated thing—a voltmeter, an electron, or a molecule—is a physical system. The expression physical system is taken in its familiar, intuitive sense. For instance, a partially but sufficiently isolated atom is a physical system or, for short, a system. This chapter summarizes the rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is essentially a statistical theory. Except in special cases it makes no prediction that bears on individual systems. The observables which have a continuous eigenvalue spectrum have eigenvectors that are not normalizable. As regards the measurement of these observables, some technical changes should therefore be made in expression. The chapter introduces vector space which has the structure of a Hilbert space for describing ensembles of physical systems of the same type.
