The Effect of Niels Bohr on the Economy

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Niels Bohr was a brilliant physicist who did lots of wonderful things and he just was not a particularly clear writer or speaker. When I consider potential sponsors for Mindscape, I'm naturally drawn to educational services. But policy genius can be thought of as an educational service when it comes time to search for insurance policies. You go to the website and you can find multiple quotes from the leading insurers around the country so you can pick which is the policy that best fits you. They also have experts on staff who can help you search through all of these different policies.

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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