Published May 1987 | Version v1
Journal article

Niels Bohr's discussions with Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schroedinger: the origins of the principles of uncertainty and complementarity

Creators

  • 1. Instituts Internationaux de Physique et de Chimie (Solvay), Brussels, Belgium

Description

In this paper, the main outlines of the discussions between Niels Bohr with Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schroedinger during 1920-1927 are treated. From the formulation of quantum mechanics in 1925-1926 and wave mechanics in 1926, there emerged Born's statistical interpretation of the wave function in summer 1926, and on the basis of the quantum mechanical transformation theory - formulated in fall 1926 by Dirac, London, and Jordan - Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle in early 1927. At the Volta Conference in Como in September 1927 and at the fifth Solvay Conference in Brussels the following month, Bohr publicly enunciated his complementarity principle, which had been developing in his mind for several years. The Bohr-Einstein discussions about the consistency and completeness of quantum mechanics and of physical theory as such - formally begun in October 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference and carried on at the sixth Solvay Conference in October 1930 - were continued during the next decades. All these aspects are briefly summarized

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Found. Phys.
Journal Volume
17
Journal Issue
5
Series
Found. Phys.
Journal Page Range
461-506
ISSN
0015-9018
CODEN
FNDPA