Collapsing a wave in quantum physics, kindergarten edition. Quantum physics gives a neat mirror: a system can be a wave of many possibilities until an act of measurement turns it into one reality. In life, your act of measurement can be a word, a boundary, a whistle, or a refusal - and that is what truth does(black flame in my language). 1.References: John von Neumann, “Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics” (1932)
Von Neumann incorporated wave function collapse into the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics and proposed the formal “collapse postulate” - that when a measurement is made, the wave function collapses into one of the possible outcomes, with the process being essentially random but biased by the probabilities encoded in the wave function
2.David J. Griffiths, “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics” (2nd Edition, 2005)
This textbook clearly explains the basic concepts of quantum mechanics and directly addresses the measurement problem and collapse in accessible terms Goodreads
Why this is best: Griffiths provides clear, pedagogical explanations suitable for understanding the physics (not just the mathematics) of collapse, though it’s noted he has “a nice 5 pages” on philosophical aspects like Schrödinger’s cat and collapse.
