[Vision2020] Einstein and Quantum Mechanics

[Phil Nisbet]

Nick

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/quantum1.htm

Glad to provide more if you need it.

Einstein was not opposed to quantum mechanics, he was opposed to the 
uncertainty principle which Heisenberg proposed to solve certain problems.  
That is the origin of the Dice comment, that G-d did not play craps with the 
universe.  Even while accepting the general rules hammered out in the famous 
1920's conferences, Einstein sought deeper structural therom which woud 
provide a uniform framework of all matter and energy and go beyond simple 
quantum mechanics.

I hope that you have not been teaching your statement; "Einstein did not 
develop quantum mechanics; it was Werner Heisenberg who did so.  In fact, 
Einstein fought the implications of quantum theory all of his life. His most 
famous quip on the matter was "G-d does not play
dice with the universe."  Sadly for Einstein, the evidence for the truth of 
the theory keeps piling up year by year, and physicists still do not have a 
way, except for the highly speculative string theory, to reconcile 
relativity and quantum mechanics."

The first papers suggesting quantum theory were written by Maz Planck in 
1900 and Einstein was writting of photonic quantum theory in 1906, work for 
which he later received the Nobel Prize.  Heisenberg did not produce his 
first paper on Quantum Mechanics until 1925 and published his Uncertainty 
Prionciple in 1927.  How exactly do you figure that Heisenberg was the 
developer of Quantum Mechanics?

Further, John von Neuman was the person who finally completed the work and 
set it on a sound theoretical basis through the use of operator algebra.  
Heisenberg's contribution was principly providing the uncertainty principle, 
which states that the process of measuring the position x of a particle 
disturbs the particle's momentum p, so that

Dx Dp   = h/2p

where Dx is the uncertainty of the position and Dp is the uncertainty of the 
momentum. Here h is Planck's constant and  is usually called the 'reduced 
Planck's constant'.

As for disagreeing with quantum mechanics:

"Some physicists, among them myself, cannot believe that we must abandon, 
actually and forever, the idea of direct representation of physical reality 
in space and time; or that we must accept the view that events in nature are 
analogous to a game of chance . Probably never before has a theory been 
evolved which has given a key to the interpretation and calculation of such 
a heterogeneous group of phenomena of experience as has quantum theory. In 
spite of this, however, I believe that the theory is apt to beguile us into 
error in our search for a uniform basis for physics, because, in my belief, 
it is an incomplete representation of real things, although it is the only 
one which can be built out of the fundamental concepts of force and material 
points (quantum corrections to classical mechanics). The incompleteness of 
the representation leads necessarily to the statistical nature 
(incompleteness) of the laws. (Albert Einstein, on Quantum Physics, 1954)"

In otherwords Nick, Einstein sought to improve on the theory and realized 
that it was not cut and dried.

And for your information, Nick, the unified field theory was supposed to 
reconcile Quantum Theory, Light and Relativity and Gravity, not simply 
relativity and quantum mechanics.

Solutions to many of Einstein's concerns have since been derived, though a 
unified field theory has not yet been devised and may never be realized.

Like so much that you tend to write, Nick, you come up with partial analysis 
and then tend to make grand statements.  Your explanation of Einstein's 
stance on quantum mechanics is loaded with inaccuracies that make it almost 
a bubblegum card and it leads anybody reading it to very wrong conclusions.

As for your second paragraph, Nick, I did not call you an anti-Semite, I 
called your friend Ralph one.  I did not call him anti-Semitic based upon 
the use of the term Hebrew Bible, I did so based upon his commentary about 
the contents of Tanahk.  By all means contact your friend Dr Bloom and ask 
him is people spreading statements that Jews sell their daughters into 
slavery is anti-Semitic or not.

Phil Nisbet

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