Einstein, Physics and Reality

Angelo Bassi, Sheldon Goldstein, Roderich Tumulka +1 more

Huang Ji

Einstein and Bohr are all realists, holding the view of physical reali ty. Einstein thinks that physical reality is localizable, separable, and causall y deterministic; however, Bohr holds that physical reality is illocalizable, ins eparable and statistically deterministic.

Bernard d’Espagnat, Translated by J. C. Whitehouse

Norman Graves

Arguably the most important scientific debate of the 20th Century was that which took place between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr over the nature of reality. Bohr argued that reality was subjective in nature and therefore depended on the presence of an observer or observing process, while Einstein argued that reality had to be objective. The debate was never resolved, ending prematurely with Einstein's death in 1955. Having outlived Einstein, Bohr's ideas have come to dominate modern physics and Einstein has been somewhat sidelined. Perhaps now it is time to revisit the debate to see if Einstein was correct all along.

Andrew Whitaker

This article reviews How Physics Confronts Reality: Einstein was Correct but Bohr Won the Game by Roger G. Newton . 147 pp. , Singapore, 2009. Price: $54(cloth) ISBN 978-981-4277-02-0; $29.95(paper) ISBN 978-981-4277-03-7.

John Lighton Synge