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In this letter from Einstein to David Bohm, Einstein discusses the importance of connecting a key principle of the relatively new theory of quantum mechanics (the ?Born interpretation?) to physical quantities that can be measured in the real world. To him, it is essential that mathematical theories be connected to measurable quantities. In this letter, Einstein?s uneasiness with quantum mechanics is apparent, saying that validation of the seemingly random quantum mechanics ??can only be done on the basis of classical mechanics.? Without this validation, quantum theory has essentially ?no controllable meaning.??Max Born was a renowned physicist who was crucial for the development of quantum mechanics (and also the Ph.D. supervisor of many important physicists including J. Robert Oppenheimer). Quantum mechanics describes the weird behavior of tiny subatomic particles. It?s also the guiding theory that led to critical technologies like nuclear power, MRI machines, and transistors in computers and phones. One of Born?s biggest contributions to quantum mechanics was the interpretation of the probability density, which is a mathematical operation performed on the ?psi-function? (in Einstein?s words) to predict the most probable physical quantities of a quantum particle. Einstein believed that probabilities only make sense if you can determine the values that they predict independently by measurement. This is easy to do in classical, Newtonian, mechanics (the physics of big things in everyday life). But Einstein said we can?t measure it for something like a ?bound electron? (i.e., an electron in an atom). In order to interpret Born?s probability density function, you need to connect the mathematics to real values.? Einstein?s correspondence with Born on this subject is published and famous.To Einstein, the universe is observable and measurable.When confronted with one of the principle tenets of Quantum Mechanics, Einstein remarked, now famously, ?Quantum mechanics is very imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not the real McCoy. The theory delivers a lot but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One [God]. I for one am convinced that He does not throw dice.? This statement was made in one of those significant letters to Born.? What he meant here is that rules of science cannot be random, and in the rolling of dice we would have to accept unknown variables and therefore be unable to predict precisely via objective measurements.? Therefore, in Quantum Mechanics (as in gambling), an uncertainty of measurement exists. And to Einstein, the universe is observable and measurable. He did not object to Quantum Mechanics per se; indeed he made notable contributions. But he eschewed any reliance on what was not observable and knowable.David Joseph Bohm was an American scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind.? His first book, Quantum Theory, published in 1951, was well received by Einstein, among others. But Bohm became dissatisfied with the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory he had written about in that book.Bohm?s aim was not to set out a deterministic, mechanical viewpoint, but to show that it was possible to attribute properties to an underlying reality, in contrast to the conventional approach. He began to develop his own interpretation (the De Broglie?Bohm theory, also called the Pilot wave theory), the predictions of which agreed perfectly with the non-deterministic quantum theory. He initially referred to his approach as a hidden variable theory. Bohm originally hoped that hidden variables could provide a local, causal, objective description that would resolve or eliminate many of the paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics,? the measurement problem and the collapse of the wavefunction. However, Bell?s theorem complicates this hope, as it demonstrates tha.
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