O quadro mundial da mecânica quântica e a sua popularização

The Quantum Mechanical Worldpicture
and Its Popularization1

Dennis Dieks

Department of History and Foundations of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences,
Utrecht University

Introduction

I think it is a common experience to be impressed, and even fascinated, by articles in the newspaper’s Science Section. Reading such articles is the obvious way to stay at least reasonably well-informed. But I think it is also not unusual to be a bit disappointed by such articles. Speaking for myself — but I believe the experience is generic — the more familiar I am with the discussed topics, the likelier I am to be a bit dissatisfied. Subtle but important differences are neglected by the science reporter; he forgets to mention that certain results have only a tentative status; and he seems to be somewhat confused about the details of the physical explanation of the phenomena he discusses.

Obviously, it would not be fair to discard the work of science popularizers because of inaccuracies like that. The articles written by science reporters are not meant for the experts in the field. Their purpose is to convey the broad outline of new developments and new ideas to those outside the circle of experts: this aim can only be reached if certain details are omitted. No harm is done by inaccuracies as long as the global picture is not distorted.

This may appear a trite remark. But it nevertheless presupposes something which is not trivial, namely that there is a picture which has to be represented as accurately as possible.

There are different ways in which this condition may be not fulfilled. First, there may be various schools of thought among scientists, and a lack of consensus. In that case a science journalist cannot do much better than sketching the disagreement and describing the various points of view. More problematical, however, is a situation in which there even are no clearly formulated points of view shared by substantial numbers of scientists.

The popularizer is then left to his own devices and has to rely on more or less individual points of view.

Such a situation may seem hypothetical. But it actually occurs, so I will argue, in what is often considered the most fundamental of sciences, namely physics. Most physicists have no clear conception of the interpretation of their most basic theory, quantum mechanics.

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