|
|
Article: Quantum mechanics gets real. (future quantum mechanics theory and research)(75th Anniversary Supplement)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- March 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Writing to Niels Bohr in 1935, physicist Erwin Schrodinger lamented his inability to understand a principle that Bohr deemed essential to the interpretation of quantum mechanics: "It must belong to your deepest conviction-and I cannot understand on what you base it," Schrodinger complained.
Bohr's principle concerns the way in which a measurement of a quantum mechanical system-the position of an electron, for example-produces a specific result. Quantum mechanics requires that a system exist in a range of possible states, a superposition, until a measurement is made, at which point one of those states takes on a definite reality. But how?
To illustrate his ...