Pickering, Phil and Baron, Sam and Tanner, John (2026) Vector Parthood. [Preprint]

Text Vector Parthood.pdf Download (999kB)

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to outline a viable notion of parthood for vectors. The importance of vector parthood has come to the fore in discussions of quantum mechanics, with two accounts existing already. We show that both fail to preserve the transitivity of parthood. We thus present a new account of vector parthood that preserves transitivity and is applicable to quantum systems. We close by suggesting some applications for the notion we present here that go beyond quantum mechanics, including ordinary sinusoidal waves (e.g., water or sound waves).

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Pickering, Phil phil.pickering@outlook.com 0009-0004-8802-2665 Baron, Sam S.Baron@unimelb.edu.au Tanner, John john.tanner@uwa.edu.au>
Keywords:	vectors, quantum mechanics, mereology, parts, parthood
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Depositing User:	Mr Phil Pickering
Date Deposited:	16 Jan 2026 13:32
Last Modified:	16 Jan 2026 13:32
Item ID:	27901
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Date:	15 January 2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27901

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item