It was also in this period that the deep metaphysical problems posed by quantum mechanics first came into view. To some degree, the differences of opinion that emerged in these years are still with us today. Segrè: “Perhaps [Einstein] was even right, although there is no evidence for this. The argument still goes on.... Now, almost eighty years after Solvay, the repeatedly verified Bohr interpretation still stands, as solid as ever, but still questioned, as it should be.”
As it should be with all science.
Heisenberg prolly rules :) . . .
ReplyDeleteAmazing currents in the air of deep mystery considering the so-called split between science and superstition. A-I guru F. David Peat (whom I interviewed in the eighties after reading his book, Synchronicity), recounts the events surrounding the death of W. Pauli (b. 1900) I relay paraphrastically here:
During a lecture the discoverer of the exciting theoretical existence of the neutrino was overtaken by excruciating pain to the point where he agreed to attend the Emergency of a local hospital in Zurich, no small concession considering his aversion to same.
Pancreatic cancer. When they installed him in his room post-procedure/s, he looked at its number on the door, turned to those accompanying him and, with quiet resignation, sighed: "I won't be leaving this room alive."
The room number? One-hundred-and-thirty-seven, the fine-structure constant, approximately 1/137, an endlessly fascinating whole conumberdrum with which he wrestled (famously) throughout his life, the idea that it was the only human-scale number, yes; but also, it was a dimensionless quantity possessing no numerical value independent of the system of units used to quantify it.
(Grossly over-simplifying; but, the kernel of the story is the mystery, a mystery of the same magnitude John Derbyshire relates in the piece DL DeLivers, IMO.)
Astonishingly, Wolfgang Pauli was right. He gave up the ghost ten days before Christmas in Room 137 in 1958.