Sunday, October 24, 2010

A friendship beyond QM

This is an excerpt from the book,"The Breakthrough" by G.Venkataraman :

'...arguments on matters concerning physics never came in the way of friendship between Bohr and Einstein. They were both truly great, rising above differences in their scientific viewpoints. Bohr came to India around 1960, and i vividly recall a lecture he gave to a crowded audience in the TIFR, Bombay. Bohr was then over seventy, and he spoke about his longstanding debate with Einstein. He presented slide after slide of experimental apparatus visualized by Einstein and also himself in their various gedanken experiments. Bohr then went on to patiently explain how Einstein was in error. The sound system wasn't good and Bohr's accent wasn't easy to follow. Frankly, i did not understand one word of what Bohr said! And yet i sat there spellbound because Bohr had lectured as if the audience did not exist and as if there was Einstein sitting in front of him. In fact, when Bohr came to the end ,he did not exult in joy (since his arguments upheld quantum mechanics). Instead, he was in tears, unhappy perhaps about having won an argument against his dearest friend.'

Another one, by Abraham Pais:

'I began to grasp not only the thread of Bohr's arguments but also their purpose. Just as in many sports a player goes through warming up exercises before entering the arena, so Bohr would relive the struggles which it took before the content of quantum mechanics was understood and accepted. I can say that in Bohr's mind this struggle started all over every single day...Einstein appeared forever his leading spiritual partner- even after the latter's death he would argue with him as if Einstein were still alive.'

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