Mechanical Systems that are both Classical and Quantum

Understand

Quantum dynamics can be regarded as a generalization of classical finite-state dynamics.

• This is a familiar viewpoint for workers in quantum computation, which encompasses classical computation as a special case.
• Here this viewpoint is extended to mechanics, where classical dynamics has traditionally been viewed as a macroscopic approximation of quantum behavior, not as a special case.
• When a classical dynamics is recast as a special case of quantum dynamics, the quantum description can be interpreted classically.