 As already mentioned,  Dirac wrote as if the collapse of the quantum state vector precipitated by an experimental intervention on the system is a genuine physical change, distinct from the usual unitary evolution. If collapse is to be taken as a genuine physical process, then something more needs to be said about the circumstances under which it occurs than merely that it happens when an experiment is performed. This gives rise to a research programme of formulating a precisely defined dynamics for the quantum state that approximates the linear, unitary Schrödinger evolution in situations for which this is well-confirmed, and produces collapse to an eigenstate of the outcome variable in typical experimental set-ups, or, failing that, a close approximation to an eigenstate. The only promising collapse theories are stochastic in nature; indeed, it can be shown that a deterministic collapse theory would permit superluminal signalling. See the entry on  collapse theories  for an overview, and Gao, ed. (2018) for a snapshot of contemporary discussions.