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Physics Education

The hidden-variables controversy in quantum physics

Trevor Pinch

Published Jan 1, 1979• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The author discusses the work of Bohm in the 1950s on the hidden variables approach to quantum theory, and the subsequent debate and controversy that it produced.
DOI
10.1088/0031-9120/14/1/007

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Forty years after the advent of quantum mechanics the problem of hidden variables, that is, the possibility of imbedding quantum theory into a classical theory, remains a controversial and obscure subject. Whereas to most physicists the possibility of a classical reinterpretation of quantum mechanics remains remote and perhaps irrelevant to current problems, a minority have kept the issue alive throughout this period. (See Freistadt [5] for a review of the problem and a comprehensive bibliography up to 1957.) As far as results are concerned there are on the one hand purported proofs of the non-existence of hidden variables, most notably von Neumann’s proof, and on the other, various attempts to introduce hidden variables such as de Broglie [4] and Bohm [1] and [2]. One of the difficulties in evaluating these contradictory results is that no exact mathematical criterion is given to enable one to judge the degree of success of these proposals. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
It has been shown by us recently that Einstein was right in his controversy with Bohr or that the so called hidden-variable theory should be preferred to the Copenhagen quantum mechanics. In the following paper the corresponding arguments will be shortly repeated. The main attention will be then devoted to explaining main differences between these two quantum alternatives, differing in the access to the problem of chance, causality and locality of microscopic objects. The actual meaning of the mentioned hidden variables will be discussed, too, the essence of which remained practically unclear during all past discussions. It will be shown that the theory of hidden variables (or Schroedinger equation alone) is able to represent the properties of the whole known physical reality.