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Cultural Studies

Quantum mechanics and the postmodern in one country

Henry Krips

Published Jan 1, 1996• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The orthodox interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was banned in the Soviet Union in 1947, an episode usually glossed as another illustration of repressive Soviet science. This paper argues that the roots of this ban should be located at a much deeper level, in a tension existing between the ‘postmodern’ form of orthodox Quantum Mechanics and an ideology of modernization. In the West a similar ideological tension had a different result: when the occasion demanded, the orthodox interpretation was covertly exchanged for an agnosticism about metaphysical matters, and potential areas of conflict with the principles of modernization were thus defused. The latter strategy benefited the orthodox interpretation, which enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the West from the 1940s through to the 1960s. Using the Freudian notions of ‘transference’ and ‘disavowal’, I explain why the ideological tension with modernization was resolved differently in the West and in the Soviet Union.

DOI
10.1080/09502389600490471

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The orthodox interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was banned in the Soviet Union in 1947, an episode usually glossed as another illustration of repressive Soviet science. This paper argues that the roots of this ban should be located at a much deeper level, in a tension existing between the ‘postmodern’ form of orthodox Quantum Mechanics and an ideology of modernization. In the West a similar ideological tension had a different result: when the occasion demanded, the orthodox interpretation was covertly exchanged for an agnosticism about metaphysical matters, and potential areas of conflict with the principles of modernization were thus defused. The latter strategy benefited the orthodox interpretation, which enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the West from the 1940s through to the 1960s. Using the Freudian notions of ‘transference’ and ‘disavowal’, I explain why the ideological tension with modernization was resolved differently in the West and in the Soviet Union.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is usually called standard because it is presented in the basic textbooks on the field. In the USSR this inter­pretation was treated from the point of view of the philosophy of dialectic mate­rialism, which was taken as the state ideology. This treatment was oscillated from negative and rejecting of definitely positive. The Copenhagen interpreta­tion has been rejected by the Marxist philosopher A. Maximov, it was severely criticized by the physicist D. Blohintsev, who supported the ensemble approach to quantum mechanics, it was adopted by the mathematician-physicist V. Fock, who proposed some corrections and reservations to it. The Soviet ideology was not completely homogeneous and stable. From the very beginning it contained the philosophy of activity which was something like the “shadow component”. By accepting the philosophy of activity the physicist M. Markov provided the authentic presentation of the Copenhagen interpretation in 1947. In 1980 the philosophy of activity became popular among Russian intellectuals, and the philosopher I. Alexeev published the detailed presentation of the Copenhagen interpretation by treating it as methodologically productive.
Vladimir Fock was a Soviet theoretical physicist who, from the 1930s, worked to prove that modern physics was compatible with the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism. In 1957, he went to Copenhagen, and a dispute over the interpretation of quantum mechanics began with Niels Bohr. Fock later claimed that he had found points of convergence with his Danish colleague, most of them concerning issues of wording and recognition of the reality of the world independently of our mind. It led to a specific narrative among historians of physics on Fock and his interpretation of quantum mechanics: The Soviet physicist is often described as a member of the Copenhagen school that contributed to the rapprochement of the Soviet philosophy of physics with the ideas of complementarity in stripping away the positivism in its formulation. Our contribution aims to show that this ideological dimension was only one aspect of reality. Returning to the foundations of Fock's epistemology of physics, we argue that he relied on the principles of antireductionism and scientific realism to develop an interpretation of the theory that sought to overcome Bohr's approach and that the differences between the two men cannot be reduced to mere questions of formulation.
The article takes under consideration three versions of the ensemble (statistical) interpretation of quantum mechanics and discusses the interconnection of these interpretations with the philosophy of science. To emphasize the specifics of the problem of interpretation of quantum mechanics in the USSR, the Marxist ideology is taken into account. The present paper continues the author’s previous analysis of ensemble interpretations which emerged in the USA and USSR in the first half of the 20th century. The author emphasizes that the ensemble approach turned out to be a dead end for the development of the interpretation of quantum mechanics in Russia. The article also argues that in Soviet Russia, the classical Copenhagen (standard) approach to quantum mechanics was used. The Copenhagen approach was developed by Lev Landau in 1919–1931 and became the basis of the Landau-Lifshitz famous course on quantum mechanics, one of the classics of twentieth-century physics literature (the first edition was published in 1947). Although Vladimir A. Fock’s approach to the interpretation of quantum mechanics differs from the standard presentation by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, Fock put forward a very important principle that complementarity is a “firmly established law of nature”. The fundamental writings of Lev Landau, Vladimir Fock and Igor Tamm, the authors of the mid-twentieth century, did a lot to defend the standard point of view such as the popular interpretations by Landau and Lifshitz. This approach can be traced back to Landau’s early writings and to Fock’s criticism of the ensemble approach.
Soviet attitude towards Bohr reflects changes in the ideological approach to science. During the last period before Stalin's death Ždanov proclaimed the campaign against Western influence in Soviet philosophy and science. Nevertheless the physicist M. A. Markov tried to introduce complementarity as a materialistic interpretation of quantum‐mechanics in 1948. He was officially condemned. This was followed by a period (1948–54) during which heavy attacks were made against the Copenhagen school. In 1958, after a personal exchange of thoughts with Bohr, academician Fock declared complementarity and probability to be irreversible steps towards a new insight into physical reality, at the same time correcting some of Bohr's epistemological conceptions.
This paper examines the resurgence of interest in the interpretation of quantum theory which occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s, and seeks to uncover its political origins in a perceived clash between the post-War Stalinist interpretation of dialectical materialism and the `Copenhagen' interpretation of quantum mechanics. In examining the debate that followed this renewed interest, certain issues concerning scientific argument are touched upon. These relate particularly to the progress of scientific dispute in a context in which no appeal to experiment can be made. This unusual state of affairs raises questions as to whether such disputes can be resolved, and if so, how. In order to explore these questions, the outcomes of the debates in the USSR and in the West are discussed.
We discuss the hypothesis that the debate about the interpretation of the orthodox formalism of quantum mechanics (QM) might have been misguided right from the start by a biased metaphysical interpretation of the formalism and its inner mathematical relations. In particular, we focus on the orthodox interpretation of the congruence relation, '=', which relates equivalent classes of different mathematical representations of a vector in Hilbert space, in terms of metaphysical identity. We will argue that this seemingly "common sense" interpretation, at the semantic level, has severe difficulties when considering the syntactic level of the theory.