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Quantum Mechanics, Amplifying Processes, and Living Matter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Walter M. Elsasser
Walter M. Elsasser*
Affiliation:
University of Utah
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Extract

A quarter of a century has elapsed since quantum mechanics was discovered. Perhaps it is not too much to say, in retrospect, that the time was ripe for this particular development. This is attested, not only by the speed with which the edifice of the theory was completed immediately following the basic discoveries of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also by the rapidity, well-nigh unprecedented in the history of science with which the new results were applied to almost every branch of physics and chemistry. A mental readiness on the part of the scientists involved might have had much more to do with this than the facilities of modern communication systems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1951 , pp. 300 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © 1951, The Williams & Wilkins Company

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Footnotes

∗

First printed in Proceedings of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, vol. 26, 1951.

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