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Science in Context

Einstein's Interpretations of the Quantum Theory

Arthur I. Fine

Published Jan 1, 1993• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Argument This paper argues that Einstein subscribed to three distinct kinds of interpretations of the quantum theory: subjective, instrumental, and hidden variables interpretations. We explore the context and ihe content of Einstein's thinking over these interpretations, emphasizing Einstein's conception of his role not only as a critic of the new quantum theory but also as a guide pointing the way to better physics.

DOI
10.1017/s026988970000137x

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The Argument This paper argues that Einstein subscribed to three distinct kinds of interpretations of the quantum theory: subjective, instrumental, and hidden variables interpretations. We explore the context and ihe content of Einstein's thinking over these interpretations, emphasizing Einstein's conception of his role not only as a critic of the new quantum theory but also as a guide pointing the way to better physics.
Einstein's arguments concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics are reviewed and contrasted with certain misconceptions regarding his attitude toward the theory. He considered Born's statistical interpretation to be the only satisfactory one, and he was not a supporter of hidden-variable theories such as that of Bohm. His criticism of the interpretation accepted, at least tacitly, by many physicists was that the quantum state function does not provide a description of an individual system but rather of an ensemble of similar systems. This criticism was not based merely upon his famous remark that God does not play dice, but upon some definite physical arguments which did not assume determinism.
This preprint re-examines the widespread belief that “Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics.” While Einstein is often portrayed as rejecting quantum theory due to his criticism of its probabilistic interpretation, this simplified narrative does not accurately reflect his actual position or the historical context. The paper organizes Einstein’s original arguments, clarifies common misunderstandings—such as the misattribution that he “advocated hidden variables”—and reviews the development of Bell’s inequalities and their experimental tests. These experiments ruled out simple local hidden-variable models but did not fully resolve Einstein’s deeper concern: the possible incompleteness of quantum mechanics as a physical theory. By revisiting historical documents and theoretical developments, this work argues that Einstein’s critique was not a fundamental mistake but has been misinterpreted over time. The goal is to provide a more accurate understanding of the Einstein–Bohr debates and the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics.
This brief survey analyzes the epistemological implications about the role of observer in the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. As we know, the goal of most interpretations of quantum mechanics is to avoid the apparent intrusion of the observer into the measurement process. In the same time, there are implicit and hidden assumptions about his role. In fact, most interpretations taking as ontic level one of these fundamental concepts as information, physical law and matter bring us to new problematical questions. We think, that no interpretation of the quantum theory can avoid this intrusion until we do not clarify the nature of observer.
The foundations and meaning of quantum theory became a central issue to Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr since the onset of their impassioned debate in the 1920s, enriched by the contributions of many other distinguished scientists and philosophers.The questions are not settled down at all, despite the great achievements of the theory, its impressive accordance with experiment and predictive power.The fundamental and technological applications range from cosmology to biology, with the development of invaluable instruments and the design of new materials.Is quantum mechanics a complete or an incomplete theory?Is there an objective reality independent of the observer or is the reality created by the measurements?Are hidden-variable theories justifiable?Is there a quantum theory founded in a local-causal and non-linear approach that formally contains the orthodox linear theory as a special case?Can such a formulation unify classical and quantum physics?Are Heisenberg's uncertainty relations valid in all cases?Here, the subject is addressed as an adaptation of our contribution to the Colloquium "Quantal aspects in Chemistry and Physics.
In this paper, we shall show how the theory of measurements is to be understood from the point of view of a physical interpretation of the quantum theory in terms of "hidden" variables, developed in a previous paper. We find that in principle, these "hidden" variables determine the precise results of each individual measurement process. In practice, however, in measurements that we now know how to carry out, the observing apparatus disturbs the observed system in an unpredictable and uncontrollable way, so that the uncertainty principle is obtained as a practical limitation on the possible precision of measurements. This limitation is not, however, inherent in the conceptual structure of our interpretation. We shall see, for example, that simultaneous measurements of position and momentum having unlimited precision would in principle be possible if, as suggested in the previous paper, the mathematical formulation of the quantum theory needs to be modified at very short distances in certain ways that are consistent with our interpretation but not with the usual interpretation.We give a simple explanation of the origin of quantum-mechanical correlations of distant objects in the hypothetical experiment of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, which was suggested by these authors as a criticism of the usual interpretation.Finally, we show that von Neumann's proof that quantum theory is not consistent with hidden variables does not apply to our interpretation, because the hidden variables contemplated here depend both on the state of the measuring apparatus and the observed system and therefore go beyond certain of von Neumann's assumptions.In two appendixes, we treat the problem of the electromagnetic field in our interpretation and answer certain additional objections which have arisen in the attempt to give a precise description for an individual system at the quantum level.