Abstract
Here we discuss what famous physicists, such as Bohr, Heisenberg and many others, have said about the novelty of quantum mechanics. We will also see some objections to the orthodoxy expressed by Einstein, Schrödinger and Bell, and we shall explain the goals and the outline of this book.
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Notes
- 1.
Since this book deals mostly with non-relativistic quantum physics, we will use the expressions “quantum mechanics”, “quantum physics”, or “quantum theory” interchangeably.
- 2.
Feynman was comparing the situation in quantum mechanics with the one in the theory of relativity [185]: “There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Many people, including some famous physicists, claim that the difficulty in understanding quantum mechanics is similar to that in understanding relativity , but this is just not so.
- 3.
There is an enormous amount of pseudo-scientific literature claiming to base itself on quantum mechanics. But we will not be concerned with that; given the way respectable scientists talk about quantum mechanics, as we will see in this book, its exploitation by the pseudo-sciences, while perfectly unfounded, may not be so surprising.
- 4.
In his critique of the standard discussions of the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics [46], Bell mentions three good books: those by Dirac [137], Landau and Lifshitz [302], and Gottfried [236], as well as an article by van Kampen [494]. These are classics and so is the one by Bohm [61]. One might add to that list the more recent one by Shankar [447]. However, Bell shows in [46] that even the good books do not deal in a satisfactory way with the conceptual problems.
- 5.
- 6.
The physical reasons for this emphasis on measurements or observations will be explained in Chap. 2.
- 7.
One should add to this list of founding fathers precursors like Max Planck and Albert Einstein , but also Louis de Broglie , Paul Dirac , and Erwin Schrödinger. However, Dirac was rather neutral on these conceptual issues, de Broglie changed his views more than once, and Einstein and Schrödinger were strongly opposed to the Copenhagen interpretation.
- 8.
This is quoted and discussed by Sheldon Goldstein in [221].
- 9.
See [396] for a detailed presentation of Bohr’s philosophy.
- 10.
This algorithm will be explained in Chap. 2. (Note by J.B.).
- 11.
As Norton Wise has shown [520], Jordan had rather strange views on biology (vitalism), parapsychology, and psychoanalysis and he was a committed member of the National Socialist party, mixing up his views on quantum mechanics with his politics. The subject-centered aspect of quantum mechanics was good news for him, since it put one more nail in the coffin of the Enlightenment. After the war, Jordan reincarnated himself as a democratic cold warrior, arguing for the nuclear armament of Germany, and denouncing the “naïve illusions” of pacifist-minded people such as Max Born. Concerning Jordan and his relationship with Bohr, see Heilbron [255].
- 12.
The three quotes here come from Mara Beller’s article [51], which we will discuss in Chap. 8. The quote from Pauli comes from a private letter.
- 13.
This principle will be explained in Chap. 2. (Note by J.B.).
- 14.
See also [306, 16] for Pauli’s views on religion and “deep psychology”.
- 15.
A basic concept of Bohr, which will be discussed in Chap. 2, particularly in Appendix 2.C. (Note by J.B.).
- 16.
As we will see in Chap. 7.
- 17.
The argument is based on the reduction or collapse of the quantum state, which will be defined in Sect. 2.3. (Note by J.B.).
- 18.
Here, Wigner refers in a footnote to some of the statements by Heisenberg quoted in Sect. 1.2. According to Wigner, Heisenberg had “expressed this [idea] most poignantly”. He also refers to London and Bauer [312] who wrote in 1939 a detailed theory of measurement in quantum mechanics, which stressed “the essential role played by the consciousness of the observer” [510, p. 251]. To be fair to Wigner, one must add that his ideas on the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics changed over time (see Esfeld [177]).
- 19.
In 2009, D’Espagnat won the Templeton Prize, which rewards a person who “has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works”.
- 20.
This refers to the following remark by Abraham Pais about his conversations with Einstein who, as we will see in the following section, was irritated by all the talk about “observations” [369, p. 907]: “We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.” Pais adds: “The rest of the walk was devoted to a discussion of what a physicist should mean by the term ‘to exist’.” Of course, Mermin may not have meant literally what he said about the moon. But what he really meant is not obvious. We will come back to that quote in Sect. 3.3. (Note by J.B.).
- 21.
- 22.
Some of the quotes below come from Goldstein [221] and are discussed there.
- 23.
Schrödinger was referring to the word “complementarity ”, which was the foundation of Bohr’s approach and will be discussed in Appendix 2.C. (Note by J.B.).
- 24.
This was written after he introduced his famous “cat ” in [441], which is supposed to be “both alive and dead”. The idealism , implicit in the view that Schrödinger rejects, will be criticized in Chap. 3.
- 25.
He added [170, p. 672]: “In a complete physical description, the statistical quantum theory would [...] take an approximately analogous position to the statistical mechanics within the framework of classical mechanics.” This refers to an idea, developed at the end of the nineteenth century, according to which the laws of thermodynamics could be derived from an application of statistical reasoning to the motion of atoms, the latter giving a more complete description of matter than the one given by thermodynamics or fluid mechanics.
- 26.
He probably also thought that this description would render the theory deterministic, but it is doubtful that he was mainly concerned with determinism. We will discuss that in Sect. 7.1.
- 27.
The Class Two difficulties, which he discusses in the rest of this article, are those related to the mathematical formulation of quantum field theories .
- 28.
Putting aside the problem of quantum gravity, which is indeed a difficult and unsolved problem, but it cannot be considered as a refutation of quantum mechanics.
- 29.
See Sect. 2.5, and especially the theorem at the end of that section.
- 30.
Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, active at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, whose views were somewhat similar to those of the Copenhagen school, long before the advent of quantum mechanics. For example, in 1897, he wrote:
Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) make up bodies. If, to the physicist, bodies appear the real, abiding existences, whilst the “elements” are regarded merely as their evanescent, transitory appearance, the physicist forgets, in the assumption of such a view, that all bodies are but thought-symbols for complexes of elements (complexes of sensations).
Ernst Mach [314, p. 29]
Mach always rejected the existence of atoms. His philosophy influenced the school of logical positivism, which itself had an influence on the orthodox view of quantum mechanics. We will discuss logical positivism and its influence in physics in Sect. 7.7 and in Chap. 8.
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Bricmont, J. (2016). Physicists in Wonderland. In: Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25889-8_1
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