At the beginning of the twentieth century it would be unthinkable, among european scientists, to separate natural science and philosophy. Physicists-philosophers were scientists such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, among others, who refounded physics by laying the foundations of quantum mechanics and special and general relativity. In this paper we briefly review how some of these thinkers have looked at the issues of the value of science, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the importance of Greek philosophy to nuclear physics and quantum theory.
At the beginning of the twentieth century it would be unthinkable, among european scientists, to separate natural science and philosophy. Physicists-philosophers were scientists such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, among others, who refounded physics by laying the foundations of quantum mechanics and special and general relativity. In this paper we briefly review how some of these thinkers have looked at the issues of the value of science, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the importance of Greek philosophy to nuclear physics and quantum theory.
Philosophical reflections on physics and its theories have been shaping the agenda of general philosophy of science, including issues such as the nature of scientific theories, the meaning of scientific terms, and scientific modeling. But physics is also well worth being considered a special science of its own, whose methods and tools raised specific questions for philosophers of science: this is the approach followed in this chapter, which has as its main thread the role of mathematics in physical theories. It tackles classical issues concerning measurement and determinism and long-standing controversies in the philosophy of statistical mechanics (how may the reversible laws of mechanics account for the irreversible principles of thermodynamics?) and in the philosophy of quantum physics (does quantum mechanics provide us a with a complete description of quantum phenomena?). It also addresses emerging issues in the field, such as computer simulations and their role between theory and observation.
Resumen El presente ensayo tiene como proposito rememorar la fascinante historia de la fisica moderna, junto a la ineludible filosofia de sus actores: Planck, Einstein, De Broglie, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr y Born. Una disertacion llena de polemicas, paradigmas y grandes transformaciones emergidas a finales del siglo XIX e inicios del XX. En este contexto, el nuevo paradigma converge en un debate fisico-filosofico centrado en la interpretacion de la Fisica Cuantica, liderada por Einstein y Bohr en el seno de los Congresos Solvay y extendiendose fuera de los mismos, en el que unos defienden el determinismo como teoria fisica afianzada en la realidad misma de sus entes, frente a la vision en que es preciso renunciar al determinismo y a la pretension de un realismo objetivista. Controversy of a new paradigm: from einstein bohr y born Abstract This essay aims to relive the fascinating story of modern physics, with the inevitable philosophy of its actors: Planck, Einstein, de Broglie, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohr and Born. A dissertation full of controversies, paradigms and large transformations emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In this context, the new paradigm converge on a physical and philosophical debate focused on the interpretation of quantum theory, Einstein and Bohr led within the Solvay Conferences and extending outside thereof, in which some defend determinism as physical theory entrenched in the reality of its authorities, against the view that determinism is necessary to waive the claim and an objectivist realism.
Many of the pioneers of quantum mechanics – notably Planck, Einstein, Bohr, de Broglie, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Born, Jordan, Landé, Wigner, and London – were seriously concerned with philosophical problems. In each case one can ask a question of psychological and historical interest: was it a philosophical penchant which drew the investigator towards a kind of physics research which is linked to philosophy, or was it rather that the conceptual difficulties of fundamental physics pulled him willynilly into the labyrinth of philosophy? I shall not undertake to discuss this question, but shall cite an opinion of Peter Bergmann, which I find congenial: he learned from Einstein that “the theoretical physicist is … a philosopher in workingman's clothes” ([1], q. v.). The problems with which I am preoccupied concern the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics – either epistemological, bearing on the extent, validity, and character of human knowledge; or metaphysical, bearing on the character of reality. Although quantum mechanics is not a system of philosophy, one can wonder whether it is susceptible to coherent incorporation in a philosophical system. I propose to examine the thought of three masters of quantum mechanics – Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger – not with a critical or historical intention, but in hope of finding some enlightenment concerning the problems posed by contemporary physics. I can say in advance that enlightenment will continue to elude us; nevertheless, the ideas of Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrödinger are rich and evocative for new studies.
Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schr�odinger and Wolfgang Pauli exhibited in their works a strong and insistent interest in Greek philosophy. And this interest --they claimed-- was not at all separated from their investigations into the new quantum theory. Heisenberg directly a�rmed that "one could hardly make progress in modern atomic physics without a knowledge of Greek natural philosophy". What does this claim mean? Why do these central �gures in the development of quantum mechanics saw the Greeks as their main inspiring source? Why do they took them as a model for contemporary science, even over their modern predecessors of Enlightenment? This work attempts to answer these questions focusing on three main reasons: the revision of atomism, the recasting of the meaning of "understanding" in physics, and the critique of separations in science.
Este artigo discute o uso que Werner Heisenberg faz da filosofia grega clássica no âmbito dos debates acerca da teoria quântica realizados na primeira metade do século xx. Para esse autor, a ciência foi determinada pelo influxo de duas correntes de pensamento que surgiram na Grécia antiga: o materialismo e o idealismo. A partir de tal clivagem, Heisenberg fundamenta sua crítica aos opositores da Interpretação de Copenhague, além de justificar filosoficamente suas próprias teses sobre a mecânica quântica. Apesar de suas concepções filosóficas não serem passíveis de uma sistematização completa, a relação que Heisenberg estabeleceu entre a filosofia grega e os problemas da teoria dos quanta acabou por resultar em uma interpretação da realidade física na qual é predominante um platonismo e um incipiente estruturalismo matemático.
Niels Bohr was born on October 7, 1885. He was one of the great innovators in physical science in the twentieth century. It so happens that 1985 also marks fifty years since the long discussions, which had begun in the 1920s between Albert Einstein and Bohr on the philosophical problems of quantum physics, attained their apogee. An article co-authored by Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, "Can Quantum Mechanics Be Considered a Complete Description of Physical Reality?,"1 was published in 1935 in the journal Physical Review. According to Bohr, "by virtue of its clarity and, it would seem, flawless argumentation, the work of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen has created excitement among physicists and played a great role in the discussion of general philosophical questions of physics."2 Precisely as a result of the publication of this article, the critical position of Einstein concerning quantum mechanics became known to a broader circle of physicists. (Prior to this not many physicists had participated in the discussions.)3 In the same year, Bohr responded to Einstein and his co-authors with an article under the same title.4