On April 17-18, 2023, an international conference dedicated to the problems of history and philosophy of quantum physics was held in Paris, bringing together physicists, philosophers and historians of science from Europe, America and Australia. The conference discussed both the issues put on the agenda by quantum technologies and traditional philosophical issues of quantum mechanics. The conference was associated with the presentation of the book “The Oxford Handbook of Quantum Interpretations” (2022) and most of the speakers were authors of this collective work.
On April 17-18, 2023, an international conference dedicated to the problems of history and philosophy of quantum physics was held in Paris, bringing together physicists, philosophers and historians of science from Europe, America and Australia. The conference discussed both the issues put on the agenda by quantum technologies and traditional philosophical issues of quantum mechanics. The conference was associated with the presentation of the book “The Oxford Handbook of Quantum Interpretations” (2022) and most of the speakers were authors of this collective work.
Quantum mechanics approaches its centenary with an impressive record. It became the backbone of most research in physics, led to applications such as the transistor and laser, and prompted an upheaval in the philosophy of science. Its scope and its precision have been constantly growing, and it is now promising more powerful computers and safer cryptography. This century of conquests has also been a time of ongoing debates about the foundations and interpretation of the theory, which has been referred to as the quantum controversy. The controversy has been unusually long and remains open. Jammer called it “a story without an ending” and Laloë described this coexistence of successes and doubts with the metaphor of the colossus with feet of clay. This Handbook is a survey on this history. Some of the so-called “interpretations” are not interpretations of a fixed formalism, they are different theories, thus it has been a debate about the interpretations and the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this volume, the “history of interpretations” is used for the sake of brevity. The successive parts of the Handbook deal with the scientific and philosophical issues under debate, historical landmarks, places and contexts, historical and philosophical theses, and the proliferation of interpretations. This Handbook may serve those interested in the history of quantum mechanics and those who are engaged with, or attracted by current research on quantum information, as it may give them a flavor of the history that led to or lay the groundwork for the current investigations.
More than a century after the beginning of the quantum revolution, historians continue to explore new facets in the history of quantum physics, and to re-examine some of its better-known aspects. The thirteen papers collected in this volume, by authors from five continents, present central trends in the current study of quantum physics within its theoretical, experimental, philosophical, technological and social contexts. They discuss developments from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century and go beyond the traditional focus on Europe and North America to include China and Japan, and beyond the Heisenbergs and Diracs to reveal the role of actors who hitherto have played only a marginal role in historical account, but left their mark on the development of quantum physics. Also a wider array of subdisciplines comes into view, from optics to quantum gravity through quantum electrodynamics, from atomic and nuclear to condense matter physics and foundations of physics. Moreover, the volume shows that fields such as dispersion, physical chemistry and solid state physics should not be seen merely as areas of applications of ideas that evolved in other contexts, but should be regarded as birthplaces of important theoretical insights. The perspective of the papers ranges from local histories to global discussions, from conceptual changes via the role of experimentation to interactions with social and technological forces and to the interpretation of the theory.
This chapter, along with the next two chapters, sets the basic context for the readers to go into the topic of this book. Physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers struggle to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics and debate on the interpretations of quantum mechanics. What is the foundation of quantum mechanics and how to interpret the formalism of quantum mechanics are the core issues of concern in the philosophy of physics. These two questions also involve fundamental issues in the general philosophy of science and even metaphysics and epistemology. This chapter introduces the original thoughts, historical developments, and current status of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, as well as its connection with the philosophy of science and metaphysics; it also analyzes the classifications by Bell, Leifer, and Cabello on the spectrum of interpretations of quantum mechanics, which can be regarded as a sort of “navigation map”. On this basis, the main object of discussion in this book is introduced – the quantum histories interpretation.
In June 2025, the Voprosy filosofii journal hosted a jubilee “round table” “Philosophical Problems of Quantum Mechanics: Historical Reality and Development Prospects,” dedicated to the centenary of the emergence of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics. The round table was organized by the Department of Philosophy of the Natural Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The discussion brought together specialists in the philosophy and methodology of science, in the philosophical problems of quantum mechanics, as well as natural scientists and historians of science. Participants focused primarily on the conceptual aspects of the mathematical framework of quantum mechanics and on the question of which event should be considered the true “birthdate” of this field of knowledge. In addition, the interdisciplinary dialogue clarified the trajectories of interaction between quantum mechanics and the social and human sciences in today’s changing world. A special topic of discussion concerned the philosophical research programs that influenced the development of quantum mechanics, and the extent to which quantum mechanics itself has significantly shaped these programs (including eco-philosophical ones). Most participants agreed that dialectics and phenomenology (particularly those of G.W.F. Hegel, M. Heidegger, G.G. Shpet, and others) are acquiring special importance today for comprehending the fundamental foundations of quantum mechanics. Another original perspective in the debate was linked to examining the philosophical meanings of logic and hermeneutics and assessing their methodological potential in research on quantum mechanics.
This conference brought together experts in different fields related to the foundations of quantum mechanics, ranging from mathematical physics to experimental physics, as well as the philosophy of science. The major topics discussed are: collapse models, Bohemian mechanics and their relativistic extensions, other alternative formulation of quantum mechanics, properties of entanglement, statistical physics and probability theory, new experimental results, as well as philosophical and epistemological issues.
Recent developments in quantum theory have focused attention on fundamental questions, in particular on whether it might be necessary to modify quantum mechanics to reconcile quantum gravity and general relativity. This book is based on a conference held in Oxford in the spring of 1984 to discuss quantum gravity. It brings together contributors who examine different aspects of the problem, including the experimental support for quantum mechanics, its strange and apparently paradoxical features, its underlying philosophy, and possible modifications to the theory.