Algebraic Frameworks for Measurement in the Natural Sciences

The goals of this paper fall into three related areas: (i) we present an overview of a universal algebraic paradigm in which measurement specialists can construct formal models of measurement in a unified manner and systematically reason about a large class classical measurement operations, (ii) we construct convenient von Neumann quantity algebras and quantity-channels between them to represent measurements, and introduce the dual framework of state spaces and state-channels between them to investigate the statistical structure of measurements, and (iii) we provide several detailed examples that illustrate the power and versatility of algebraic approaches to measurement procedures.