Table Of ContentScience and Its Conceptual Foundations
A series edited by David 1. Hull
Quantwn
Dialogue
The Making of a Revolution
Mara Beller
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Chicago & London
MAllA BE1..LE1t is the Barbara Druss Dibner Professor in History and Philosophy of Sci
ence at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
C> 1999 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1999
Printed in the United States of America
080706 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 12345
ISBN: 0-226-04181-6 (cloth)
Photo credits: All courtesy American Institute of Physics, Emilio Segre Visual Archives.
Heisenberg and Bohr, photo by Paul Ehrenfest Jr. Bohr and Einstein, photo by Paul Ehren
fest Jr. Stern, Pauli, and Heisenberg, photo by Paul Ehrenfest Jr. Dirac and Heisenberg, Phys
ics Today Collection. Bohr, Franck, and Hansen, Margrethe Bohr Collection. schrodinger,
king of Sweden, and Heisenberg, Max-Planck-Institut fUr Physik. Bohr and Pauli, CERN.
Einstein and Pauli, photo by Paul Ehrenfest Jr. Zernike, W. F. Meggers Collection.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beller, Mara.
Quantum dialogue: the making of a revolution / Mara Beller.
p. cm.-(Science and its conceptual foundations)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-04181-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Quantum theory. 2. Communication in physics. 3. Physics
Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
QCI74.13.B45 1999
530. 12-dc21 99-35499
CIP
@) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the Ameri
can National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Li
brary Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
In memory of my mother.
Ida Baruch
Thinking and discourse are the same thing .... What we call
thinking is precisely the inward dialogue.
Plato
The roads by which men arrive at their insights ... seem to me
almost as worthy of wonder as these matters in themselves.
Johannes Kepler
Revolutions are true as movements and false as regimes.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
CONTENTS
~
List of lllustrations xi
Preface and Acknowledgments xiii
1. Novelty and Dogma 1
Dialogical Creativity 1
Rhetorical Strategies 10
PART ONE DIALOGICAL EMERGENCE
2. Matrix Theory in Flux 17
Introduction 17
A Revision of the Origins of the Matrix Theory 18
The Emotional Confrontation between the Matrix
Physicists and Schrodinger 30
Born's Probabilistic Interpretation: A Case Study of
"Concepts in Flux" 39
3. Quantum Philosophy in Flux 51
Introduction 51
Positivism in Flux 52
Indeterminism in Flux 59
4. The Dialogical Emergence of Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Paper 65
Introduction 65
Dialogue with SchrOdinger 67
Dialogue with Pauli 79
Dialogue with Dirac 85
Dialogue with Jordan 91
Dialogues with "Lesser" Scientists 96
viii Contents
5. The Polyphony of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Paper 103
Introduction 103
The Polyphony of the Notion of Interpretation 106
The Contingency of Acausality 110
Anschaulichkeit and the Status of Oassical
Concepts 113
6. The Dialogical Birth of Bohr's Complementarity 117
Introduction 117
Dialogue with Schrodinger: The Structure of
Atoms 122
Dialogue with Einstein and Compton 131
Dialogue with Campbell 135
Clash with Heisenberg: Setting the Historical Record
Straight 138
Confrontation with Pauli 141
Conclusion 143
7. The Challenge of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen and
the Two Voices of Bohr's Response 145
Two Voices in Bohr's Response to Einstein-Podolsky-
Rosen 145
Bohr's Victory? 151
Disturbance, Reality, and Acausality 155
Bohr's Doctrine of the Indispensability of Oassical
Concepts and the Correspondence Principle 160
PART Two RHETORICAL CONSOLIDATION
8. The Polyphony of the Copenhagen Interpretation
and the Rhetoric of Antirealism 171
Introduction 171
What Scientists "Need Not" and "Must
Not" Do 173
The Appeal of Antirealism: Some General
Considerations 176
Reality, Oassical Concepts, and Symbols 179
The Appeal of Antirealism: Bohr's Version 184
Antirealism and Opposition 185
The Appearance of Consensus and Conclusion 187
Contents ix
9. The Copenhagen Dogma: The Rhetoric of Finality
and Inevitability 191
Introduction 191
Acausality and the Indispensability of Oassical
Concepts 194
Operationalism: From Consistency to Inevitability
Arguments 199
Bohm on Classical versus Quantum Concepts and on
Indeterminism 206
10. Constructing the Orthodox Narrative 211
Introduction: ''Whiggish'' History and "Winner's"
Strategies 211
Discontinuities and Quantum Jumps 214
Indeterminism and Historiographical Doubts 220
11. The Myth of Wave-Particle Complementarity 223
Introduction: The Dramatic Historical
Narrative 223
Mathematical Physicists and the Wave-Particle
Dilemma 227
Ambiguity and the Wave-Particle Issue 232
Ideological and Pedagogical Uses of Wave-Particle
Complementarity 237
12. Complementarity as Metaphor 243
Introduction 243
The Web of Correspondences and Harmonies 248
"Wholeness" as Metaphor 252
Bohr: Mathematics and Common Language 259
Metaphorical Appeal and Conclusion 262
13. Hero Worship, Construction of Paradigms, and
Opposition 269
Introduction 269
Bohr and Hero Worship 270
The Issue of Consistency 275
Opposition, Paradigms, and Past Science 276
14. Dialogues or Paradigms? 287
Introduction 287
Heisenberg's /lOosed Theories" and Kuhnian
"Paradigms" 288
Where Did Kuhnian Incommensurability Come
From? 290
x Contents
Hanson's Incommensurability and the Copenhagen
Dogma 294
Paradigms and the History of Science 300
Paradigms and Holism 302
Paradigms and Creativity 304
15. Dialogical Philosophy and Historiography:
A Tentative Outline 307
In Praise of Disagreement 308
The Philosophical and Historiographical Advantages
of DiaJogism 313
Theory as Practice: Between Tools and
Metaphors 317
Truth and Beauty 320
References 327
Index 355
