QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

In contrast to Heisenberg, Bohr did not consider mathematical consistency to be the most
important value. He wanted to achieve a deeper understanding of the uncertainty relationship and
wave-particle dualism by believing that these features in some manner reflected the structure of
reality. As will be described in greater detail in Section 4.4.2, Bohr wanted to hold on to classical
concepts and he searched for new connections between them and reality by employing the idea
of complementarity. He considered the uncertainty relationship to be a mainstay of the doctrine
of complementarity, and thought that in the same way that descriptions of position and
momentum in quantum mechanics are complete in themselves and modifiable to each other by
employing Fourier transformations, classical descriptions and concepts such as the particles and
waves employed in describing atomic systems are perfectly suitable in specific experimental
situations. Simultaneous employment of such complementary type descriptions was not however
possible, since quantum theory did not permit experimental situations in which both aspects of
such systems could be defined exactly at the same moment. In this sense complementarity has a
clear physical meaning.
Following a long discussions with Bohr, Heisenberg also recognised that even though our
classical language does not work at the atomic level, we are not able to abandon it. 532 Even
though the world is not divided into parts in the way we have learned to become familiar with on
the basis of our experiences at the macro level, we do not have any better tool than natural
language to describe our experimental observations. However, the uncertainty relationship did
make clear the fact that the concepts of Newtonian mechanics were not, on their own, adequate
for quantum mechanics, since the position and velocity of particles could never be known with
absolute precision. At the same time, it became clear that all the attributes associated with a
system in all its different situations could never be known at one time. The uncertainty
relationship is also linked to the statistical predictions given by quantum mechanics. For
example, the exact decay time of a radioactive alpha particle cannot be defined precisely because
if it could be, alpha particles could not be also understood as waves leaving the atomic nucleus,
something which can be experimentally demonstrated. Paradoxical tests of this type which
expose the wave and particle nature of atomic matter compel us to be satisfied with the statistical
conformity to laws. 533
4.2.4. Non-locality and entanglement (Quantum co-operation)
532 Folse 1985, s. 90-97.
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