Students of quantum theory always find it a very difficult subject. To begin with, it involves unfamiliar mathematics: partial differential equations, functional analysis, and probability theory. But the main difficulty, both for students and their teachers, is relating the mathematical structure of the theory to physical reality. What is it in the laboratory that corresponds to a wavefunction, or to an angular momentum operator? Or, to use the picturesque term introduced by John Bell, what are the “beables” (pronounced BE‐uh‐bulls) of quantum theory—that is to say, the physical referents of the mathematical terms?
REFERENCES
1.
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, England (1987).
2.
N. Bohr, in Albert Einstein: Philosopher‐Scientist, P. A. Schilpp, ed., Tudor, New York (1951) p. 201. Reprinted in ref. 4, p. 9.
3.
M. Gell‐Mann, J. B. Hartle, in Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information, W. Zurek ed., Addison Wesley, Reading, Pennsylvania (1990) p 425.
4.
Quantum Theory and Measurement, J. A. Wheeler, W. H. Zurek. eds., Princeton U. P., Princeton, N. J. (1983), This book reprints a number of important papers on quantum foundations and paradoxes.
5.
J. S. Bell, in Sixty‐Two Years of Uncertainty, A. I. Miller, ed., Plenum, New York (1990), p. 17.
6.
7.
8.
For a superb discussion, see R. P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton, M. Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Addison‐Wesley, New York (1963), vol. 1, chap. 37, or vol. 3, chap. 1.
9.
10.
11.
12.
R. Omnès, Understanding Quantum Mechanics, Princeton U. P., Princeton, N. J. (1999).
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© 1999 American Institute of Physics.
1999
American Institute of Physics
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