Towards a Quantum Culture: The Different Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

Session

Communications I

9 Dec 2025, 16:50

Conveners

Communications I

• Matteo Leone

3. E(p/in)stein & Quantum Theory Around 1917

Alexander Afriat

09/12/2025, 16:50

We’re in the phase of the old quantum theory that begins—after Sommerfeld’s refinements (1915) to Bohr’s atom—to involve sophisticated analytical mechanics; Schwarzschild (1916) has just turned atomic mechanics into a Hamiltonian ‘micro-celestial’ mechanics, with action-angle variables, resonances etc. The two names in my title represent the two research programmes I propose to compare. On the...

4. Doubling a Quantum Process: the Intriguing History of a Rare Process

Adele Naddeo

09/12/2025, 17:10

Just ten years since the introduction of quantum mechanics, and soon after the appearance of the Fermi’s theory of beta decay, an elusive and intriguing process was theoretically introduced in the realm of nuclear physics by “doubling” known decays. We here reconstruct the genesis and the early history of such a process, starting from Maria-Goeppert Mayer’s Ph.D. work on the theory of...

5. The Long Historical Path Towards the Logic of Quantum Mechanics

Marco Di Mauro

09/12/2025, 17:30

We historically retrace the path towards the construction of a logic for quantum mechanics, starting from the analysis of J. von Neumann’s seminal contributions, which include his work with G. Birkhoff on quantum logic, and his first paper on operator algebras with F. J. Murray. The emerging feature is his growing dissatisfaction with the Hilbert space formalism, because of the ensuing...