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arXiv:1801.09305 · Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

Von Neumann’s impossibility proof: Mathematics in the service of rhetorics

Dennis Dieks

Published Feb 16, 2017• 93 citations
arXivHTMLPDF
DOI
10.1016/j.shpsb.2017.01.008

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•Jan 26, 2023•0 citations
Abstract Also physics has its impossibility statements. We compare them with the mathematical impossibility theorems and look into the history of one of them: the impossibility of building a perpetual motion machine. We also consider impossibilities in twentieth-century physics, in particular in quantum mechanics. For example, Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations imply that it is impossible to measure both the place and momentum of a particle accurately. We also discuss von Neumann’s controversial proof that it is impossible to obtain a deterministic version of quantum mechanics by introducing hidden variables.