Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- 1 Quantum physics
- 2 Which way are the photons pointing?
- 3 What can be hidden in a pair of photons?
- 4 Wonderful Copenhagen?
- 5 Is it all in the mind?
- 6 Many worlds
- 7 Is it a matter of size?
- 8 Backwards and forwards
- 9 Only one way forward?
- 10 Can we be consistent?
- 11 Illusion or reality?
- Further reading
- Index
4 - Wonderful Copenhagen?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- 1 Quantum physics
- 2 Which way are the photons pointing?
- 3 What can be hidden in a pair of photons?
- 4 Wonderful Copenhagen?
- 5 Is it all in the mind?
- 6 Many worlds
- 7 Is it a matter of size?
- 8 Backwards and forwards
- 9 Only one way forward?
- 10 Can we be consistent?
- 11 Illusion or reality?
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
The 1935 paper by Einstein, Podolski and Rosen represented the culmination of a long debate that had begun soon after quantum theory was developed in the 1920s. One of the main protagonists in this discussion was Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who worked in Copenhagen until, like so many other European scientists of his time, he became a refugee in the face of the German invasion during the Second World War. As we shall see, Bohr's views differed strongly from those of Einstein and his co-workers on a number of fundamental issues, but it was his approach to the fundamental problems of quantum physics that eventually gained general, though not universal, acceptance. Because much of Bohr's work was done in that city, his ideas and those developed from them have become known as the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. In this chapter we shall discuss the main ideas of this approach. We shall try to appreciate its strengths as well as attempting to understand why some believe that there are important questions left unanswered.
When Einstein said that ‘God does not play dice’, Bohr is said to have replied ‘Don't tell God what to do!’ The historical accuracy of this exchange may be in doubt, but it encapsulates the differences in approach of the two men. Whereas Einstein approached quantum physics with doubts, and sought to reveal its incompleteness by demonstrating its lack of consistency with our everyday ways of thinking about the physical universe, Bohr's approach was to accept the quantum ideas and to explore their consequences for our everyday ways of thinking.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Quantum PhysicsIllusion or Reality?, pp. 52 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004