Langevin in the Debates on Quantum Mechanics

L. S. F. Olavo, Luciano C. Lapas, A. Figueiredo

M. Roncadelli

N. G. van Kampen, Irwin Oppenheim

Jonas R. Becker Arenhart, Nahuel Sznajderhaus

Robert Golub, S. K. Lamoreaux

Abstract This conference was lauded by Heisenberg as, “officially, the completion of the quantum theory,” while Langevin remarked it was, “where the confusion of ideas reached its peak.” The conference was held just as the theory had reached maturity, only two years after Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics was invented. De Broglie argued for his pilot wave theory, which was shot down by Pauli using an incorrect argument and in later years was re-introduced as the de Broglie–Bohm theory. Heisenberg and Dirac debated the meaning of superposition and the “collapse” of the wave function. Bohr and Einstein engaged in their legendary debate. In the conference proceedings, we see the main contributors to the new theory attempt to come to terms with its enigmas.

Anastasios Brenner

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.