"God Does Not Play Dice"
In June 1926, Max Born published a paper, "Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge" ("Quantum Mechanics of Collision Phenomena") in the scientific journal Zeitschrift für Physik, in which he was the first to clearly enunciate the probabilistic interpretation of the quantum wavefunction, which had been introduced by Erwin Schrödinger earlier in the year. Born concluded the paper as follows:
Here the whole problem of determinism comes up. From the standpoint of our quantum mechanics there is no quantity which in any individual case causally fixes the consequence of the collision; but also experimentally we have so far no reason to believe that there are some inner properties of the atom which conditions a definite outcome for the collision. Ought we to hope later to discover such properties...and determine them in individual cases? Or ought we to believe that the agreement of theory and experiment -- as to the impossibility of prescribing conditions for a causal evolution -- is a pre-established harmony founded on the nonexistence of such conditions? I myself am inclined to give up determinism in the world of atoms. But that is a philosophical question for which physical arguments alone are not decisive.
Born's interpretation of the wavefunction was criticized by Schrödinger, who had previously attempted to interpret it in real physical terms, but Albert Einstein's response became one of the earliest and most famous assertions that quantum mechanics is incomplete:
Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard. But an inner voice tells me that this not yet the right track. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One's secrets. I, in any case, am convinced that He does not play dice.
Read more about this topic: Hidden Variable Theory
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