Bonn 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 4: Integrated History and Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

AGPhil 4.2: Vortrag

Dienstag, 11. März 2025, 14:45–15:15, HS XVII

Reflections on a Revolution — •Noah Stemeroff — University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

The development of quantum mechanics marks a turning point in the philosophical interpretation of physical theory. The early architects of quantum mechanics are claimed to have banished the last vestiges of philosophical intuition from the foundations of physics. Through the discovery of the fundamentally irrational, and indeterministic, nature of the quantum world, these physicists are credited with reorienting physical inquiry toward a more direct reliance on empirical facts, which no longer required (or were even amenable to) any intuitive picture.

However, this story is far from the actual facts. By the end of the 1920s, the founders of modern quantum mechanics had settled on a basic interpretation of quantum theory. Yet, central problems remained unresolved. In the search for new physics, the early architects of quantum mechanics did not, as one would expect, renounce forms of speculative philosophy. This talk will trace the history of the philosophical interpretation of the quantum revolution by its founders: Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli. In particular, it will focus on Pauli and Heisenberg's decades-long attempt to come to terms with the meaning of the quantum revolution and its implications for the future of scientific inquiry. Much of this history has been lost in the traditional narratives surrounding the interpretation of quantum mechanics, but it can shed important light not only on the early history of theory, but also on the nature of philosophical discourse within the practice of science itself.

Keywords: History of Quantum Mechanics; Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics; History of Philosophy