In his brilliant article "Against 'Measurement'", John Bell famously
argued that the word has had such a damaging effect on the discussion,
that it should now be banned altogether in quantum mechanics. But in
the beginning was the word, and the word is still with us. Indeed,
David Mermin responded In Praise of Measurement that within the field
of quantum computer science the concept of measurement is precisely
defined, unproblematic, and forms the foundation of the entire
subject, a verdict reaffirmed by the development of measurement-based
quantum computation. Bell's arguments deserve a more direct response:
I shall try to give one.
