Fermi and quantum electrodynamics

Abstract

The fifth Solvay conference in 1927 [1] marks the final acceptance of non-relativistic quantum mechanics by the community of physicists through the formulation of Born, Heisenberg and Jordan [2] and with the Bohr interpretation as the definite and correct theory of the phenomena which take place at the level of the constitutive elements of reality. In this way Wolfang Pauli [3] remembered this turning point six years later:

“With Heisenberg’s indetermination principle [...] the initial phase of the development of the theory came to an end. The theory leads to the solution of the problem which has been sought for a long time and supplies a correct and complete description of the phenomena concerned. The solution is obtained by abandoning the causal and classical space-time description of nature.”