Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 3: General Principles of Quantum Mechanics
“Of course, the apparent disarray could have stemmed entirely from my own ignorance. But when I revealed my impression of confusion and dissonance to one of the attendees, he reassured me that my perception was accurate. “It’s a mess,” he said of the conference (and, by implication, the whole business of interpreting quantum mechanics). The problem, he noted, arose because, for the most part, the different interpretations of quantum mechanics cannot be empirically distinguished from one another; philosophers and physicists favor one interpretation over another for aesthetic and philosophical—that is, subjective—reasons.”
Source: The End of Science (1996), p. 88
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John Horgan (journalist) 14
American science journalist 1953Related quotes
“The most efficient and practical interpretation of quantum mechanics is… no interpretation at all.”
in [Quantum Optics for Engineers, CRC, New York, 2013, 978-1439888537, F. J. Duarte]
Dave's Diary https://www.hedweb.com/davdiary.htm, BLTC Research, May 1996
"Testing Quantum Mechanics" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003491689902765, Annals of Physics (1989)
Steven Weinberg, in " Science’s Path From Myth to Multiverse https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150317-sciences-path-from-myth-to-multiverse/" by Dan Falk (March 17, 2015)
In God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion (2012)
Context: The usual no-go theorems telling us that hidden variables are irreconcilable with locality, appear to start with fairly conventional pictures of particle systems, detectors, space and time. Usually, it is taken for granted that events at one place in the universe can be described independently from what happens elsewhere. Perhaps one has to search for descriptions where the situation is more complex. Maybe, it needs not be half as complex as superstring theory itself. The conventional Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics suffices to answer all practical questions concerning conventional experiments with quantum mechanics, and the outcome of experiments such as that of Aspect et al can be precisely predicted by conventional quantum mechanics. This is used by some to state that no additional interpretation prescriptions for quantum mechanics are necessary. Yet we insist that the axioms for any "complete" quantum theory for the entire cosmos would present us with as yet unresolved paradoxes.
Obstacles on the Way toward the Quantization of Space, Time and Matter — and possible resolutions — http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/gthpub/foundations.pdf
Quantum Mechanics in Your Face http://www.physics.harvard.edu/about/video.html, a lecture given by Sidney Coleman at the New England sectional meeting of the American Physical Society (Apr. 9, 1994)
italics in the original
DISCUSSION OF PROBABILITY RELATIONS BETWEEN SEPARATED SYSTEMS (1935)
http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/everett/.