Bonn 2025 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 6: History and Philosophy of Physics

AGPhil 6.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 12, 2025, 17:45–18:00, HS XVII

Bohr's hidden variables — •Moritz Epple — Center for Science and Thought, University of Bonn, Konrad-Zuse-Platz 1-3, 53227 Bonn

In 1927, Einstein and Bohr discussed the foundations of quantum mechanics. While Bohr held the view that the quantum formalism was complete and best understood in terms of complementary quantum phenomena, Einstein was skeptical und unleashed an unparalleled, decade-long effort of ingenuity aimed at showing that quantum mechanics offered only an incomplete description of physical reality. According to the standard narrative, Bohr not only persevered, but also won the intellectual competition between the two friends. However, looking back at these thrilling discussions from the distance of almost a century, new perspective can emerge. In this talk, I will present a non-deterministic hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics, which can be seen as a mathematically precise (re)formulation of Bohr's interpretation. I will thus argue that (contrary to Bohr's own claims) Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics actually goes beyond the standard (von Neumann-Dirac) quantum formalism und thus agrees with Einstein's criticism at least in so far as it affirms the incompleteness of the standard formalism. I will also discuss the relation of our proposal to quantum nonlocality and Bell's theorem.

Keywords: Bohr-Einstein debate; Hidden variables; Interpretation of quantum mechanics; Complementarity; Nonlocality