Nature: 100 years ago

R. G. Chambers

N. David Mermin

Fifteen years ago, I mused in a Reference Frame column on how different generations of physicists differed in the degree to which they thought that the interpretation of quantum mechanics remains a serious problem. I declared myself to be among those who feel uncomfortable when asked to articulate what we really think about the quantum theory, adding that “If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen interpretation says to me, it would be ‘Shut up and calculate!’” In the intervening years, I've come to hold a milder and more nuanced opinion of the Copenhagen view, but that should be the subject of another column. The subject of this one is the habit of misquotation or misattribution that afflicts our profession, a rather different example of which I pointed out a few months ago. Given my capacity for intellectual development (“inconsistency,” in the terminology deployed in the current American political season), it's fortunate that I've now reached an age at which I tend to forget about things I've written more than a few years ago. Indeed, I find it downright irritating when somebody asks me questions about papers I wrote a mere half dozen years ago, naively identifying me with the author of those ancient texts. Until quite recently, I had no memory of ever having written such a childishly brusque dismissal of such an exquisitely subtle point of view, much less of having published it in so widely read a venue. This amnesia, combined with the evolution in my thinking that had distanced me from my long-forgotten words, may explain why I was initially somewhat puzzled by the slight sensation of discomfort that passed over me when, browsing the e-print archive earlier this year, I read a characterization of Max Born's probability rule as “the favorite ingredient of what has been nicknamed, after Feynman's famous dictum, the shut up and calculate interpretation of quantum mechanics.” I yield to nobody in my admiration for Richard Feynman's aphorisms on the nature of quantum mechanics. Indeed, long ago I published a poem consisting of nothing more than a resetting as verse of a paragraph Feynman had written about his own attitude toward the quantum theory, in his now (but not then) famous article that launched the whole field of quantum computation. I like to think I have devoured everything Feynman ever wrote on the character of quantum mechanics.

Janja Zubović

The phenomena of light is one of the phenomena that mankind started to study most early. According to some researches, first lamp was made 70 000 years ago (it was made of some materials that could burn and on that way, made light). It is hard to imagine that mankind could not explain light until the year 1905. From 17th century until the 20th century light was scientific studied because some question related with light could not be explained. For over 350 years scientists have been trying to figure out about strange nature of light that makes it to behave sometimes as wave and sometimes as particle. Today is confirmed The dual theory of light – wave and corpuscular theory and depending on which phenomena we study, light can manifest as a wave or as a particle.

Peng Huan-Wu

As the author has the privilege of being associated with Born in Edinburgh during 1938—1941 and 1943—1945,and with Schrdinger in Dublin during 1941—1943 and 1945—1947,the beginning of quantum mechanics 80 years ago is described here with reminiscences,and also with an emphasis on the evolution of scientific ideas.