Could we now convince Einstein?

The present conference takes place in the same year that celebrates the centenary of Albert Einstein. Hence it is a good occasion to reflect on those problems which have been at the core of Einstein's intellectual activity. Undoubtedly the foundation of quantum mechanics (QM) is one of these pr...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Accardi, Luigi
Format: Tagungsbericht
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The present conference takes place in the same year that celebrates the centenary of Albert Einstein. Hence it is a good occasion to reflect on those problems which have been at the core of Einstein's intellectual activity. Undoubtedly the foundation of quantum mechanics (QM) is one of these problems. It is known that Einstein was never convinced by the interpretation of quantum mechanics accepted, in his times and still now, by the majority of physicists. The fact that he was sharing this skepticism with people like Schrodinger and, most of all, the fact that no convincing answer, to the doubts of these people, had emerged in a more than half a century old debate, helped in keeping alive the attention of a growing number of people on this problem.The crucial issue is that the standard interpretation of QM has some physical implications which are experimentally verifiable and which, for several years, have been thought to be incompatible with relativity theory (the so-called 'quantum nonlocality'). On the other hand alternative, more intuitive, interpretations (such as the ensemble interpretation) seemed to be ruled out from very well confirmed experimental data.The way out from this impasse has required a deep analysis of the connections between mathematics and physics as well as the emergence of new ideas both in mathematics (non-Kolmogorovian probabilities) and in physics (the theory of adaptive systems).The Einstein centenary is a good occasion for a short survey of these developments with the goal of answering the intriguing question posed in the title of the present paper.
ISSN:0094-243X
DOI:10.1063/1.2158707