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Summary of Einstein’s Views

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Einstein’s Struggles with Quantum Theory

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Abstract

Jeremy Bernstein1 has written that ‘In 1926, even before Heisenberg’s paper [on the uncertainty or indeterminacy principle], Einstein abandoned the quantum theory’. Bernstein also writes of the depth of Einstein’s feelings about the theory, that, at least at one period: ‘He wished to destroy it.’ And indeed it is extremely commonly implied that Einstein ‘did not accept’ quantum theory; faced with a shelf of popular physics books, or a series of relevant websites, it would take a very short time to gain the overwhelming impression that Einstein ‘rej ected quantum theory’, usually stated without any qualification.

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(2007). Summary of Einstein’s Views. In: Einstein’s Struggles with Quantum Theory. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71520-9_8

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