“The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics.”

— Victor J. Stenger

In God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion (2012)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics." by Victor J. Stenger?

Victor J. Stenger photo

Victor J. Stenger 13

American philosopher 1935–2014

Related quotes

“The most efficient and practical interpretation of quantum mechanics is… no interpretation at all.”

F. J. Duarte (1954) Chilean-American physicist

in [Quantum Optics for Engineers, CRC, New York, 2013, 978-1439888537, F. J. Duarte]

“It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

"The Early Years of Relativity" in Albert Einstein : Historical and Cultural Perspectives : The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979) edited by Gerald James Holton and Yehuda Elkana, p. 85
Context: It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form. Some further changes will be needed, just about as drastic as the changes made in passing from Bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. Some day a new quantum mechanics, a relativistic one, will be discovered, in which we will not have these infinities occurring at all. It might very well be that the new quantum mechanics will have determinism in the way that Einstein wanted.

“My own conclusion is that today there is no interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not have serious flaws. This view is not universally shared. Indeed, many physicists are satisfied with their own interpretation of quantum mechanics. But different physicists are satisfied with different interpretations. In my view, we ought to take seriously the possibility of finding some more satisfactory other theory, to which quantum mechanics is only a good approximation.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 3: General Principles of Quantum Mechanics

“I would not call [entanglement] one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

italics in the original

DISCUSSION OF PROBABILITY RELATIONS BETWEEN SEPARATED SYSTEMS (1935)

“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.”

John Horgan (journalist) (1953) American science journalist

Source: The End of Science (1996), p. 88

“Considering the pervasive importance of quantum mechanics in modern physics, it is odd how rarely one hears of efforts to test quantum mechanics experimentally with high precision.…The trouble is that it is very difficult to find any logically consistent generalization of quantum mechanics. One obvious target for generalization is the linearity of quantum mechanics, but if we arbitrarily add nonlinear terms to the Schrodinger equation, how do we know that the theory we obtain will have a sensible physical interpretation? At least in part, it is the dearth of generalized versions of quantum mechanics that has made it so hard to plan experimental tests of quantum mechanics.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

"Testing Quantum Mechanics" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003491689902765, Annals of Physics (1989)

“By far my greatest dread in life […] is that (some variant of) the Everett interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is true.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

Dave's Diary https://www.hedweb.com/davdiary.htm, BLTC Research, May 1996

“I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Interview at celebathiests.com (June 1996)

“Classical mechanics is mathematical not only in the sense that it makes use of mathematical terms and methods for abbreviating arguments which might, if necessary, also be expressed in the language of everyday speech; it is so also in the much more stringent sense that its basic concepts are mathematical concepts, that mechanics itself is a mathematics.”

Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis (1892–1965) Dutch historian

Source: The mechanization of the world picture, 1961, p. 499

“In spite of the impressive success of quantum mechanics in describing atomic physics, it was immediately clear after its formulation that its relativistic extension was not free of difficulties.”

Luis Álvarez-Gaumé Spanish physicist

Source: An Invitation to Quantum Field Theory (2012), Ch. 1 : Why Do We Need Quantum Field Theory After All?

Related topics