“The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors there the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context.”

— John S. Bell

Against 'measurement' (1990)

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John S. Bell 19

Northern Irish physicist 1928–1990

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“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.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

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

“The solution of the measurement problem is twofold. First, any observation or measurement requires a macroscopic measuring apparatus. A macroscopic object is also governed by quantum mechanics, but has a large number of constituents, so that each macroscopic state is a combination of an enormous number of quantum mechanical eigenstates. As a consequence the quantum mechanical interference terms between two macroscopic states virtually cancel and only probabilities survive. That is the explanation why our familiar macroscopic physics, concerned with billiard balls, deals with probabilities rather than probability amplitudes.”

Nico van Kampen (1921–2013) Dutch theoretical physicist

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“Certainly we do not need quantum mechanics for macroscopic objects, which are well described by classical physics – this is the reason why quantum mechanics seems so foreign to our everyday existence.”

Alain Aspect (1947) French physicist

"Introduction: John Bell and the second quantum revolution" (2004)

“It has always seemed to me that the hard thing to understand is not quantum mechanics, but where classical mechanics comes from (in the sense of how it emerges from a “measurement”).”

Peter Woit (1957) American physicist

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“There’s something I’ve been working on for more than a year — maybe it’s just an old man’s obsession, but I’m trying to find an approach to quantum mechanics that makes more sense than existing approaches. I’ve just finished editing the second edition of my book, Lectures on Quantum Mechanics, in which I think I strengthen the argument that none of the existing interpretations of quantum mechanics are entirely satisfactory.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

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)

“Weinberg says that "we want to know what's happening out there". But this is just the standard anti-quantum zealots' misunderstanding of the essence of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics says that all knowable things about the physical system must be obtained through a measurement whose outcomes are predicted via the Born rule. There is nothing else happening out there, at least nothing else knowable that is happening out there! So quantum mechanics does answer the question what is happening out there and the claim that quantum mechanics is incomplete in this sense is simply a lie.”

Luboš Motl (1973) Czech physicist and translator

https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-recent-dissatisfied-weinbergs-talk-on.html
The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

“So minuscule is the scale of quantum events compared to the actions of everyday life that it's a wonder humans ever found out about the quantum world at all.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 8, "And Then A Miracle Occurs": The Quantum Measurement Problem, p. 150

“Quantum mechanics as it stands would be perfect if we didn't have the quantum-gravity issue and a few other very deep fundamental problems.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Does Some Deeper Level of Physics Underlie Quantum Mechanics? An Interview with Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/2013/10/07/does-some-deeper-level-of-physics-underlie-quantum-mechanics-an-interview-with-nobelist-gerard-t-hooft/

“A new development began for relativity theory after 1925 with its absorption into quantum physics. The first great success was scored by Dirac's quantum mechanical equations of the electron, which introduced a new sort of quantities, the spinors, besides the vectors and tensors into our physical theories. …But difficulties of the gravest kind turned up when one passed from one electron or photon to the interaction among an indeterminate number of such particles. In spite of several advances a final solution of this problem is not yet in sight and may well require a deep modification of the foundation of quantum mechanics, such as would account in the same basic manner for the elementary electric charge e as relativity theory and our present quantum mechanics account for c and h.”

Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) German mathematician

Preface to the First American Printing (1950) Note: see Paul Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1947)
Space—Time—Matter (1952)

“Quantum mechanics is the Disney World for adults!”

Jan Zaanen (1957) Dutch physicist

Real men do GR!
in Eminent Talent: 2006 - The twelfth year, a festive edition celebrating 10 years Spinoza Prize. http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_6WAGZJ_Eng

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