Beller Mara. Quantum Dialogue: The Making of the Revolution

Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. — 378 p. — ISBN: 0-226-04181-6"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists. In Quantum Dialogue, Mara Beller shows that science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, doubt, and uncertainty. She argues that it is precisely this culture of dialogue and controversy within the scientific community that fuels creativity.Beller draws her argument from her radical new reading of the history of the quantum revolution, especially the development of the Copenhagen interpretation. One of several competing approaches, this version succeeded largely due to the rhetorical skills of Niels Bohr and his colleagues. Using extensive archival research, Beller shows how Bohr and others marketed their views, misrepresenting and dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not always coherent or well-supported position as "inevitable." Quantum Dialogue, winner of the 1999 Morris D. Forkosch Prize of the Journal of the History of Ideas, will fascinate everyone interested in how stories of "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" achieved.Novelty and DogmaDialogical Creativity
Rhetorical StrategiesDialogical EmergenceMatrix Theory in FluxA Revision of the Origins of the Matrix Theory
The Emotional Confrontation between the Matrix: Physicists and Schrodinger
Born's Probabilistic Interpretation: A Case Study of "Concepts in Flux"Quantum Philosophy in FluxPositivism in Flux
Indeterminism in FluxThe Dialogical Emergence of Heisenberg's Uncertainty PaperDialogue with SchrOdinger
Dialogue with Pauli
Dialogue with Dirac
Dialogue with Jordan
Dialogues with "Lesser" ScientistsThe Polyphony of Heisenberg's Uncertainty PaperThe Polyphony of the Notion of Interpretation
The Contingency of Acausality
Anschaulichkeit and the Status of Oassical ConceptsThe Dialogical Birth of Bohr's ComplementarityDialogue with Schrodinger: The Structure of Atoms
Dialogue with Einstein and Compton
Dialogue with Campbell
Clash with Heisenberg: Setting the Historical Record Straight 138
Confrontation with PauliThe Challenge of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen and the Two Voices of Bohr's ResponseTwo Voices in Bohr's Response to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
Bohr's Victory?
Disturbance, Reality, and Acausality
Bohr's Doctrine of the Indispensability of Classical Concepts and the Correspondence PrincipleRhetorical ConsolidationThe Polyphony of the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Rhetoric of AntirealismWhat Scientists "Need Not" and "Must Not" Do
The Appeal of Antirealism: Some General Considerations
Reality, Oassical Concepts, and Symbols
The Appeal of Antirealism: Bohr's Version
Antirealism and Opposition
The Appearance of Consensus and ConclusionThe Copenhagen Dogma: The Rhetoric of Finality and InevitabilityAcausality and the Indispensability of Classical Concepts
Operationalism: From Consistency to Inevitability Arguments
Bohm on Classical versus Quantum Concepts and on IndeterminismConstructing the Orthodox NarrativeIntroduction: ''Whiggish'' History and "Winner's" Strategies
Discontinuities and Quantum Jumps
Indeterminism and Historiographical DoubtsThe Myth of Wave-Particle ComplementarityIntroduction: The Dramatic Historical Narrative
Mathematical Physicists and the Wave-Particle Dilemma
Ambiguity and the Wave-Particle Issue
Ideological and Pedagogical Uses of Wave-Particle ComplementarityComplementarity as MetaphorThe Web of Correspondences and Harmonies
"Wholeness" as Metaphor
Bohr: Mathematics and Common Language
Metaphorical Appeal and ConclusionHero Worship, Construction of Paradigms, and OppositionBohr and Hero Worship
The Issue of Consistency
Opposition, Paradigms, and Past ScienceDialogues or Paradigms?Heisenberg's "Closed Theories" and Kuhnian "Paradigms"
Where Did Kuhnian Incommensurability Come From?
Hanson's Incommensurability and the Copenhagen Dogma
Paradigms and the History of Science
Paradigms and Holism
Paradigms and CreativityDialogical Philosophy and Historiography: A Tentative OutlineIn Praise of Disagreement
The Philosophical and Historiographical Advantages of Dialogism
Theory as Practice: Between Tools and Metaphors
Truth and Beauty