Quantum frames

•Bohr's complementarity approach requires the central concept of a “quantum frame” or “quantum measurement frame”.•Past discussions of this concept lack the necessary generality.•I build on Finkelstein's neo-Bohrian interpretation of quantum mechanics.•I extend the concept of quantum frames to be a more general and adequate interpretation of quantum theory.

The framework of quantum frames can help unravel some of the interpretive difficulties i the foundation of quantum mechanics. In this paper, I begin by tracing the origins of this concept in Bohr's discussion of quantum theory and his theory of complementarity. Engaging with various interpreters and followers of Bohr, I argue that the correct account of quantum frames must be extended beyond literal space–time reference frames to frames defined by relations between a quantum system and the exosystem or external physical frame, of which measurement contexts are a particularly important example. This approach provides superior solutions to key EPR-type measurement and locality paradoxes.