Historical Review of Quantum Mechanics

Bertrand Berche, Christophe Chatelain, Dufour +2 more

Many theoretical predictions derived from quantum mechanics have been confirmed experimentally for the last 80 years.However, interpretative aspects have long been subject to debate.Among them, the question of the existence of hidden variables is still open.We review these questions, paying special attention to historical aspects, and argue that one may definitively exclude local realism based on the present experimental outcomes.Nevertheless other interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are not excluded.

Pieter Kok

Bertrand Berche, Christophe Chatelain, C. Dufour +2 more

Many theoretical predictions derived from quantum mechanics have been confirmed experimentally during the last 80 years. However, interpretative aspects have long been subject to debate. Among them, the question of the existence of hidden variables is still open. We review these questions, paying special attention to historical aspects, and argue that one may definitively exclude local realism on the basis of present experimental outcomes. Other interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are nevertheless not excluded.

J. G. Cramer

Zhao Kai-hua

The tortuous path getting to the founding of quantum mechanics in 1925—1926 is reviewed,stressing on the historical heritage from the classical analytical mechanics and the physical ideas full of genius expressed on the way.