Max Born

1882

deutscher Physiker

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"Can we call something with which the concepts of position and motion cannot be associated in the usual way, a thing, or a particle? And if not, what is the reality which our theory has been invented to describe? The answer to this is no longer physics, but philosophy. … Here I will only say that I am emphatically in favour of the retention of the particle idea. Naturally, it is necessary to redefine what is meant. For this, well-developed concepts are available which appear in mathematics under the name of invariants in transformations. Every object that we perceive appears in innumerable aspects. The concept of the object is the invariant of all these aspects. From this point of view, the present universally used system of concepts in which particles and waves appear simultaneously, can be completely justified. The latest research on nuclei and elementary particles has led us, however, to limits beyond which this system of concepts itself does not appear to suffice. The lesson to be learned from what I have told of the origin of quantum mechanics is that probable refinements of mathematical methods will not suffice to produce a satisfactory theory, but that somewhere in our doctrine is hidden a concept, unjustified by experience, which we must eliminate to open up the road."

- Max Born

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"The world of Man's experience is infinitely rich and manifold, but chaotic and involved with the experiencing being. This being strives to arrange his impressions and to agree with others concerning them. Language and art, with their numerous modes of expression, are such ways of transmission from mind to mind, complete in their way where objects of the sense-world are concerned, but not well suited to the communication of exact ideas concerning the outer world. This marks the beginning of the task of science. From the multitude of experiences it selects a few simple forms, and constructs from them, by thought, an objective world of things. In physics, all 'experience' consists of the activity of constructing apparatus and of reading pointer instruments. Yet the results thereby obtained suffice to re-create the cosmos by thought. At first images are formed which are much influenced by observation; gradually, the conceptions become more and more abstract, old ideas are rejected and replaced by new ones. But, however far the constructed world of things departs from observation, nevertheless it is indissolubly linked at its boundaries to the perceptions of the sense, and there is no statement of the most abstract theory that does not express, ultimately, a relation between observations. That is why each new observation shakes up the entire structure, so that theories seem to rise and fall. This, however, is precisely what charms and attracts the scientist. The creation of his mind would be a melancholy thing, did it not die and come to life once more."

- Max Born

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