The Proof of Von Neumann's Proof

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In 1952, Bell sees the papers from David Baum. He immediately realizes there's nothing wrong with what Baum said. So he goes off and works in other things for a few years. And then finally in the mid 1960s, he gets a chance to think about these things when von Neumann's proof is finally available in English along with a couple of other proofs that are sort of related. It clearly doesn't work. How can you prove something can't exist when here's an example that exists? Right. The point is well known physicist Rudolf Pyrells gave him a look and said, why don't you give a talk about accelerator physics?And so he just he

There are many mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics. To me, the biggest mysteries are why physicists haven’t yet agreed on a complete understanding of the theory, and even more why they mostly seem content not to try. This puzzling attitude has historical roots that go back to the Bohr-Einstein debates. Adam Becker, in his book What Is Real?, looks at this history, and discusses how physicists have shied away from the foundations of quantum mechanics in the subsequent years. We discuss why this has been the case, and talk about some of the stubborn iconoclasts who insisted on thinking about it anyway.

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Adam Becker received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan. He is currently a science writer and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society at UC Berkeley. His book What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics comes out in paperback on Sept. 3, 2019.

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