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Revue d histoire des sciences

Analyses d'ouvrages

Anastasios Brenner

Published Jun 1, 2010• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Jacques Solomon (1908-1942) was a theoretical physicist whose career was short and hectic. He was Paul Langevin’s son-in-law and took part with him in the sudden surge of rationalism during the 30s. He was a Marxist activist, interested in dialectical materialism and its application in scientific research. He took part in the debate over the interpretation of quantum mechanics, whose assimilation in France was slow and difficult. He was trained at the Copenhagen school, but was nevertheless an uncompromising materialist who tried to conciliate several schools of thought, in order to give an answer to the difficult problem of indeterminism.

DOI
10.3917/rhs.631.0303

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Jacques Solomon (1908-1942) was a theoretical physicist whose career was short and hectic. He was Paul Langevin’s son-in-law and took part with him in the sudden surge of rationalism during the 30s. He was a Marxist activist, interested in dialectical materialism and its application in scientific research. He took part in the debate over the interpretation of quantum mechanics, whose assimilation in France was slow and difficult. He was trained at the Copenhagen school, but was nevertheless an uncompromising materialist who tried to conciliate several schools of thought, in order to give an answer to the difficult problem of indeterminism.
Jacques Solomon (1908-1942) was a theoretical physicist whose career was short and hectic. He was Paul Langevin’s son-in-law and took part with him in the sudden surge of rationalism during the 30s. He was a Marxist activist, interested in dialectical materialism and its application in scientific research. He took part in the debate over the interpretation of quantum mechanics, whose assimilation in France was slow and difficult. He was trained at the Copenhagen school, but was nevertheless an uncompromising materialist who tried to conciliate several schools of thought, in order to give an answer to the difficult problem of indeterminism.
Résumé Jacques Solomon (1908-1942) fut un physicien théoricien dont la carrière fut brève mais dense. Gendre de Paul Langevin, il participa à ses côtés au sursaut rationaliste des années 1930 et fut un militant marxiste qui s?intéressa de près à l'application du matérialisme dialectique dans le domaine de la recherche scientifique. Il prit part au débat engendré par l'interprétation de la théorie quantique, dont l'assimilation en France fut lente et difficile. Formé à l'école de Copenhague mais matérialiste convaincu, il tenta de concilier plusieurs courants de pensée afin d?apporter une réponse au difficile problème de l'indéterminisme.
Many authors have claimed that the prevalence of a rationalist and positivist philosophy among French physicists was an obstacle in the reception of quantum mechanics in France. Without challenging the basic tenet of this thesis, the present study tends to qualify it. An overview of the epistemological reception of quantum mechanics among the main theoretical physicists of the 30s and 40s shows that these theorists negotiated a reading of quantum mechanics that enabled them to maintain their philosophical outlook. In this perspective, what I call a « crypto-mechanist » interpretation of the measurement process, despite its ambiguity, played an important role, making it possible to reconcile a causal rationalism with a positivist posture.
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.
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.
Earlier in this century, the physics community was wracked with a great debate between the determinists and the indeterminists over the status of quantum theory. Determinists like Einstein and Bohm argued that quantum theory would eventually be superseded by a deterministic theory having new state variables. Indeterminists like Heisenberg and Schrodinger, speaking for the Copenhagen School, disagreed. They maintained that the indeterminism in quantum theory was not merely a temporary setback, an epistemological problem to be overcome by means of a better scientific theory, but an accurate ontological representation of the matter.