Think of someone who says: “I understand what a complex number does—how to add and multiply one, etc. -- but what does it mean?” It means what it does, and so too with density matrices.
But a complex number does mean something intuitive: it represents a rotation, or something like a rotation in whatever system is at hand. Indeed once you understand this it becomes so much easier to work with complex numbers… I too would like an intuition for density matrices that matches.
But a complex number does mean something intuitive: it represents a rotation, or something like a rotation in whatever system is at hand. Indeed once you understand this it becomes so much easier to work with complex numbers… I too would like an intuition for density matrices that matches.