Saturday, October 30, 2010

de Broglie on quantum foundations

In the latest APS News there is a This Month in Physics History column on Louis de Broglie. It contains an interesting quote:
[de Broglie] tried to develop a causal model to replace the probabilistic models of quantum mechanics, which was refined by David Bohm in the 1950s and known as the de Broglie-Bohm theory. While most of his colleagues embraced the notion that the statistical nature of atomic physics was all that could be known, de Broglie believed that “the statistical theories hide a completely determined and ascertainable reality behind variables which elude our experimental techniques.
This was similar to Einstein's view and has been given a very concrete expression in Stephen Adler's work discussed here.

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