“your endless griping about Copenhagen and Göttingen”: Heisenberg to Pauli, Oct. 12, 1925, ibid.
“I hardly need tell you”: Heisenberg to Pauli, Nov. 3, 1925, ibid.
“was scared away if not repulsed”: Schrödinger, Annalen der Physik 79 (1926): 735.
“extremely intricate and frighteningly abstract”: Cassidy 1992, 213, quoting a 1927 paper by Sommerfeld.
“that while he understood my regrets that quantum mechanics was finished”: Heisenberg 1971, 72.
“My overall impression”: Sommerfeld to Pauli, July 26, 1926, Pauli, Briefwechsel.
11: I Am Inclined to Give Up Determinism
“the chief citadel of physics in Germany”: Heisenberg 1989, 110.
he looked like a peasant boy…like a carpenter’s apprentice: Born 1978, 212; Pais 1991, 297.
the two walked through the streets to Einstein’s home: Mostly from Heisenberg 1971, ch. 5.
“possibly I did use that kind of reasoning”: Ibid., 63.
“of the recent attempts to obtain a deeper formulation”: Einstein to Sommerfeld, Aug. 21, 1926, in Einstein and Sommerfeld, Briefwechsel.
Einstein never felt at home among the “cool, blond Prussians”: Frank, 113.
“the more I think about [it] the more repulsive I find it”: Heisenberg to Pauli, June 8, 1926, Pauli, Briefwechsel.
Heisenberg in particular would say that the meaning of matrix elements as probabilities: Heisenberg AHQP interview.
“we were so accustomed to making statistical considerations”: Born AHQP interview.
“Here the whole problem of determinism arises”: Born, Zeitschrift für Physik 37 (1927): 863.
“Quantum mechanics is very imposing”: Einstein to Born, Dec. 4, 1926, Born, Born, and Einstein, Briefwechsel. “The real McCoy” is my rendition of Einstein’s phrase “der wahre Jakob,” which is still current in some parts of Germany today. It may refer to the biblical tale in which Jacob pretends to be his brother Esau so as to gain the blessing of their father, Isaac, when he is old and blind.
Mrs. Bohr fussed over him with tea and cakes: See Heisenberg’s recollection in Rozental and in Heisenberg 1971, ch. 6.
“Are we really closer to a solution of the puzzle?”: Einstein to Sommerfeld, Nov. 28, 1926, in Einstein and Sommerfeld, Briefwechsel.
12: Our Words Don’t Fit
“The conversation is almost immediately driven into philosophical questions”: Moore, 228, quoting a letter from Schrödinger to Wien, Oct. 21, 1926.
“pretty well spellbound”: Pais 1991, 295.
“since I found I couldn’t express myself in French”: Dirac AHQP interview.
“getting the interpretation proved to be rather more difficult”: Pais 1991, 295.
the two men would spend hours together during the day: See especially Heisenberg’s account in Rozental.
“Sometimes, I had the impression that Bohr really tried to lead me onto Glatteis”: Heisenberg AHQP interview.
“You can look at the world with the p-eye”: Pauli to Heisenberg, Oct. 19, 1926, Pauli, Briefwechsel.
“our words don’t fit”: Heisenberg AHQP interview.
“all the results in the paper are certainly correct”: Heisenberg to Pauli, May 16, 1927, Pauli, Briefwechsel.
“On the Perceptual Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics,” “On the Physical Content…,” and “intuitive”: Cassidy 1992, 226; Pais 1991, 304; Beller, 69 and 109.
13: Awful Bohr Incantation Terminology
“the last word on the subject” and “adapting our modes of perception”: Nature 121 (1928), supp.: 579 (editorial comment) and 580 (Bohr). Reprinted in Bohr, CW, vol. 6, 52.
“bring us a new theory of light”: Pais 1982, 404, quoting a 1909 paper by Einstein.
Ehrenfest…inscribed on a blackboard the verse from Genesis about Babel: Marage and Wallenborn, 154.
Heisenberg and Pauli professed to be unconcerned: Pais 1991, 318, quoting a recollection by Otto Stern.
Bohr admitted in private that he did not entirely understand: Ibid.; from Bohr’s handwritten notes.
the only substantial account of the tussle between Einstein and Bohr: Bohr’s memoir was written for the Schilpp volume and is reprinted in Bohr 1961.
“Like a chess match…awful Bohr incantation terminology”: Ehrenfest to Goudsmit, Uhlenbeck, and Dieke, Nov. 3, 1927, Bohr, CW, vol. 6, 38 (English), 415 (German).
“I listened to their arguments”: Dirac in Holton and Elkana, 84.
“doesn’t provide you with any equations”: Dirac AHQP interview.
“the soothing Heisenberg-Bohr philosophy”: Einstein to Schrödinger, May 31, 1928, Przibram.
14: Now the Game Was Won
Toward the end of the summer of 1928, a young Russian: Gamow, 54–55.
“At the next meeting with Einstein”: Bohr in Schilpp, 224.
“followed by a court of lesser fry” and following remarks: Rosenfeld AHQP interview.
“we were all quite happy”: Heisenberg AHQP interview.
“when I found my name in the newspapers”: Born 1968, 37.
“in the course of time the splendid things will separate from the hateful”: Heilbron, 154.
Planck was only “60 percent noble”: Fölsing, 668, quoting a letter from Einstein to F. Haber, Aug. 8, 1933.
After a visit to Germany in the early days of the Hitler regime: Rosenfeld AHQP interview.
15: Life-Experience and Not Scientific Experience
one American visitor to Göttingen: K. Compton, Nature 139(1937): 238.
“I am convinced…that the movement to dispense with causality in physics”: This and the following remark are from Forman.
“Such thinking amounted to nothing more”: Gay, 79.
Goethe “hated mathematics”: Spengler, vol. 1, 25.
“The Destiny-idea demands life-experience and not scientific experience”: Ibid., 117.
“In the evening one goes along with what he suggests”: Einstein to Born, Jan. 27, 1920, Born, Born, and Einstein, Briefwechsel.
“I was still a classicist and not a revolutionary”: Mehra and Rechenberg, vol. 1, xxiv.
16: Possibilities of Unambiguous Interpretation
“In a certain sense, therefore”: Einstein’s remarks are from his lecture On the Method of Theoretical Physics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933). The lecture was written in German, an introductory note explains, and translated into English, not always elegantly, with the help of some Oxford physicists. Instead of the awkward “competent to comprehend the real” I have borrowed the phrase “capable of comprehending reality” from the English edition of Fölsing, 674.
“I cannot understand what it means to call a theory beautiful if it is not true”: Rosenfeld in Rozental, 117.
“Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?”: A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, Physical Review 47 (1935): 777; reprinted in Toulmin.
“this onslaught came down upon us like a bolt from the blue”: Rosenfeld in Rozental, 128.
“lucidity and apparent incontestability”: Bohr in Schilpp, 232.
“a catastrophe…waste pen and ink”: Pauli to Heisenberg, June 15, 1935, Pauli, Briefwechsel.
“of course, a great deal of the argument hinges”: E. U. Condon quoted in The New York Times, May 4, 1935.
Bohr, it’s not surprising to learn: Bohr AHQP interview.
“What can they mean? Do you understand it?”: Rosenfeld in Rozental, 129.
“The apparent contradiction in fact discloses” and other remarks from Bohr’s reply to EPR: Physical Review 48 (1935): 696.
“Rereading these passages”: Bohr in Schilpp, 234.
“a final renunciation of the classical idea of causality”: From Bohr’s reply to EPR, Physical Review 48 (1935): 696.
“Bohr’s principle of complementarity”: Einstein in Schilpp, 674.
“appalling” and “high treason”: Moore, 314, quoting a letter
from Schrödinger to Einstein, March 23, 1936.
“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is”: Peterson.
“I have given up concerning myself with fundamental questions”: Cassidy 1992, 290, quoting a letter from Heisenberg to Bohr, July 27, 1931.
“we cannot and should not replace these concepts by any others”: Heisenberg 1958, 44.
the physicist John Bell came up with an ingeniously simple way: The paper announcing Bell’s celebrated theorem, originally published in 1964, is the second paper in Bell.
17: The No-Man’s-Land Between Logic and Physics
“is just a way of talking about discoveries which have already been made”: Dirac AHQP interview.
Bohr was at heart more of a philosopher than a physicist: Heisenberg in Rozental, 95.
In 1932, Bohr spoke on “Light and Life”: This and the following lectures are all in Bohr 1961.
“the concept of purpose, which is foreign to mechanical analysis”: From the “Light and Life” lecture.
“whenever you come with a definite statement”: Rosenfeld AHQP interview.
“in the no-man’s-land that lies between logic and physics”: Popper, 215.
an illuminating essay, “Causality in Contemporary Physics”: Schlick’s 1931 paper is reprinted in Toulmin.
an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics: Bohm, Physical Review 85 (1952): 166 and 180. For a more recent presentation, see Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe (New York: Routledge, 1993). Beller seems to hint occasionally that she finds Bohm’s version superior to the Copenhagen interpretation, while S. Goldstein, in The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. P. Gross, N. Levitt, and M. Lewis (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), 119, puts adherence to Copenhagen on a par with the embrace of unreason and anti-scientism. In my book Where Does the Weirdness Go? (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 111–21, I give some reasons why Bohm’s theory is not so wonderful either.
“That way seems too cheap to me”: Einstein to Born, May 12, 1952, Born, Born, and Einstein, Briefwechsel.
18: Anarchy at Last
“the more precisely the media measures individual events in a war”: Tony Blankley, Washington Times, April 3, 2003.
“formulas, diagrams”: Gore Vidal’s essay, New York Review of Books, July 17, 1976, and see letters in the Oct. 28 issue.
The West Wing: Season 5, episode 18, “Access.”
“He found himself in a land where no one had ever penetrated before”: Adams, 457–58.
“the typical physicist feels”: See Bell, 28n8; paper written with M. Nauenberg.
Postscript
“I don’t like your kind of physics”: Heisenberg AHQP interview.
“in between he was a pleasant man”: Margrethe Bohr AHQP interview.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Of the vast literature on quantum theory and its history I have read only a small fraction, and I include in this list only that still smaller fraction that I have found particularly illuminating.
Adams, H. The Education of Henry Adams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.
Bell, J. S. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Beller, M. Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Bohr, N. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: Science Editions, 1961. (Includes “Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics,” from Schilpp 1949.)
———. Collected Works. Ed. L. Rosenfeld. 11 vols. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972–87.
Born, M. My Life and My Views. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968.
———. My Life: Recollections of a Nobel Laureate. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978.
Born, M., H. Born, and A. Einstein. Briefwechsel, 1916–1955. Kommentiert von Max Born. Munich: Nymphenburger, 1969. In English: The Correspondence Between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born, 1916–1955, with Commentaries by Max Born. Trans, I. Born. New York: Walker, 1971.
Cassidy, D. C. “Answer to the Question: When Did the Indeterminacy Principle Become the Uncertainty Principle?” American Journal of Physics 66 (1998): 278.
———. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992.
Dresden, M. H. A. Kramers: Between Tradition and Revolution. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1987.
Einstein, A., and A. Sommerfeld. Briefwechsel. Ed. A. Hermann. Basel, Switzerland: Schwabe, 1968.
Enz, C. P. No Time to Be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Eve, A. S. Rutherford. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1939.
Fölsing, A. Albert Einstein. New York: Viking, 1997.
Forman, P. “Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment.” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 3 (1971): 1.
Frank, P. Einstein: His Life and Times. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1953.
Gamow, G. Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory. New York: Dover, 1985.
Gay, P. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
Gillispie, C. C., ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Scribner, 1970–89.
Greenspan, N. T. The End of the Certain World: The Life and Science of Max Born. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Heilbron, J. L. The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Heisenberg, W. Encounters with Einstein. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.
———. Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
———. Physics and Philosophy. New York: Harper, 1958.
Hendry, J. “Weimar Culture and Quantum Causality.” History of Science 18 (1980): 155.
Holton, G., and Y. Elkana, eds. Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives. New York: Dover, 1997.
Kilmister, C. W., ed. Schrödinger: Centenary Celebration of a Polymath. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Kragh, H. “The Origin of Radioactivity: From Solvable Problem to Unsolved Non-problem.” Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences 50(1997): 331.
———. Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Kuhn, T. S. Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Laqueur, W. Weimar: A Cultural History. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974.
Lindley, D. Boltzmann’s Atom: The Great Debate That Launched a Revolution in Physics. New York: Free Press, 2001.
Marage, P., and G. Wallenborn. The Solvay Councils and the Birth of Modern Physics. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1999.
Mehra, J., and H. Rechenberg. The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. 6 vols. New York: Springer, 1982–2001.
Meyenn, K. von, and E. Schucking. “Wolfgang Pauli.” Physics Today, Feb 2001.
Mommsen, H. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Trans. E. Forster and L. E. Jones. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Moore, W. Schrödinger: Life and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Nelson, E. Dynamical Theories of Brownian Motion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. (Second edition, 2001, available at www.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/books.htm.)
Nye, M. J. Molecular Reality: A Perspective on the Scientific Work of Jean Perrin. New York: History of Science Library, 1972.
———, ed. The Question of the Atom: From the Karlsruhe Congress to the First Solvay Conference, 1860–1911. Los Angeles: Tomash, 1984.
Pais, A. Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
———. Niels
Bohr’s Times in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
———. Subtle Is the Lord…: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Pauli, W. Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel mit Bohr, Einstein, Heisenbergu. A. Ed. A. Hermann and K. von Meyenn. Vol. 1, 1919–1929. New York: Springer, 1979.
Peterson, A. “The Philosophy of Niels Bohr.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 1963, 8.
Petruccioli, S. Atoms, Metaphors, and Paradoxes: Niels Bohr and the Construction of a New Physics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Popper, K. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1958.
Przibram, K., ed. Brief zur Wellenmechanik: Schrödinger, Planck, Einstein, Lorentz. Vienna: Springer, 1963. In English: Letters on Wave Mechanics. Trans. M. J. Klein. New York: Philosophical Library, 1967.
Quinn, S. Marie Curie. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
Rozental, S., ed. Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His Friends and Colleagues. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1968.
Schilpp, P. A., ed. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Evanston, Ill.: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949.
Segrè, E. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980.
Spengler, O. The Decline of the West. Trans. C. F. Atkinson. 2 vols. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1926–28.
Stachura, P. D. Nazi Youth in the Weimar Republic. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio, 1975.
Stuewer, R. K. The Compton Effect: Turning Point in Physics. New York: Science History Publications, 1975.
Toulmin, S., ed. Physical Reality: Philosophical Essays on Twentieth-Century Physics. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Waerden, B. van der, ed. Sources of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Dover, 1967.
About the Author
David Lindley was a theoretical astrophysicist at Cambridge University and at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago, before turning to writing. He has been an editor at Nature, Science, and Science News, and acted as quizmaster for a long-running segment of Sounds Like Science, a radio show hosted by Ira Flatow. His book reviews and other journalism have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wilson Quarterly, New Scientist, and the London Review of Books. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
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