Kontinuum

Die Geschichte einer Verdrängung, mit besonderem Augenmerk auf die Quantentheorie

Autor/innen

  • Gerhard Grössing Austrian Institute of Nonlinear Studies

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25365/oezg-2005-16-1-7

Abstract

Identifying »continuum« as a key concept in history, the author establishes a physicist’s view of this term, with a generally broader scope. However, when focusing on quantum physics, he produces a strong criticism both of basic theory building in quantum theory and in the historiography of this very field of scientific research. This criticism involves the fatal distinctions between the concepts of the digital and the analogue, respectively, the maintenance of a strictly reductionist, or »atomistic«, approach – as opposed to possible, more general and systemic view-points, and, consequently, the preference of research purely focussing on the particle-like rather than both the particle- and the wave-like »behaviours« on the quantum-level. It is argued that the dominant pattern of interpretation, the orthodox Kopenhagen inter- pretation, includes a highly metaphysical dimension, thereby hindering the solution of puzzles provided by quantum theory. The article pleads for a re-thinking, and re-working of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum phenomena, which draws on a ›hidden variables‹ approach in full agreement with present experimental evidence. Furthermore, the dominance of the Kopenhagen interpretation is kept up not only by means of lobbying but also by means of historiography of science. The last chapter offers alternative viewpoints, avoiding the reductionism of the orthodox school, pleading for a more complex, multi-faceted view, and including both wave and particle aspects on an equal footing.

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Veröffentlicht

2005-01-01

Zitationsvorschlag

Grössing, G. (2005). Kontinuum: Die Geschichte einer Verdrängung, mit besonderem Augenmerk auf die Quantentheorie. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 16(1), 137–167. https://doi.org/10.25365/oezg-2005-16-1-7