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The measurement problem of quantum mechanics was probably born in 1926: ‘Thus Schrödinger’s quantum mechanics gives a very definite answer to the question of the outcome of a collision; however, this does not involve any causal relationship. One obtains no answer to the question “what is the state after the collision,” but only to the question “how probable is a specific outcome of the collision” (in which the quantum-mechanical law of [conservation of] energy must of course be satisfied). This raises the entire problem of determinism. From the standpoint of our quantum mechanics, there is no quantity that could causally establish the outcome of a collision in each individual case; however, so far we are not aware of any experimental clue to the effect that there are internal properties of atoms that enforce some particular outcome. Should we hope to discover such properties that determine individual outcomes later (perhaps phases of the internal atomic motions)? Or should we believe that the agreement between theory and experiment concerning our inability to give conditions for a causal course of events is some pre-established harmony that is based on the non-existence of such conditions? I myself tend to relinquish determinism in the atomic world. But this is [also] a philosophical question, for which physical arguments alone are not decisive.’ (Born, 1926a, p. 866; translation by the author)

The topos-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics (also known as ) has the same origin as the quantum logic programme initiated by Birkhoff and von Neumann, namely the feeling that classical logic is inappropriate for quantum theory and needs to be replaced by something else.