The Statistical Interpretation according to Born and Heisenberg

Guido Bacciagaluppi (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

At the 1927 Solvay conference Born and Heisenberg presented a joint report on quantum mechanics. I suggest that the signi cance of this report lies in that it contains a ' nal' formulation of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics that goes beyond Born's original proposal. In particular, this formulation imports elements from Heisenberg's work as well as from the transformation theory of Dirac and Jordan. I suggest further a reading of Born and Heisenberg's position in which the wave function is an e ective notion. This can make sense of a remarkable aspect of their presentation, namely the fact that the 'quantum mechanics' of Born and Heisenberg apparently lacks wave function collapse.

Mots clés: Quantum mechanics; Born; Heisenberg

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Guido Bacciagaluppi. The Statistical Interpretation according to Born and Heisenberg. in Christian Joas, Christoph Lehner, Jürgen Renn. HQ-1: Conference on the History of Quantum Physics, MPIWG, pp.269-288 (Vol. II), 2008, MPIWG preprint series (Vol. 350). ⟨halshs-00999722⟩