Early Attempts At Hidden Variable Theories
Shortly after making his famous "God does not play dice" comment, Einstein attempted to formulate a deterministic counterproposal to quantum mechanics, presenting a paper at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, on 5 May 1927, titled "Bestimmt Schrödinger's Wellenmechanik die Bewegung eines Systems vollstandig oder nur im Sinne der Statistik?" (“Does Schrödinger’s wave mechanics determine the motion of a system completely or only in the statistical sense?”). However, as the paper was being prepared for publication in the academy's journal, Einstein decided to withdraw it, possibly because he discovered that implied non-separability of entangled systems could not be eliminated, as he had hoped.
At the Fifth Solvay Congress, held in Belgium in October 1927 and attended by all the major theoretical physicists of the era, Louis de Broglie presented his own version of a deterministic hidden-variable theory, apparently unaware of Einstein's aborted attempt earlier in the year. In his theory, every particle had an associated, hidden "pilot wave" which served to guide its trajectory through space. The theory was subject to criticism at the Congress, particularly by Wolfgang Pauli, which de Broglie did not adequately answer. de Broglie abandoned the theory shortly thereafter.
Read more about this topic: Incompleteness Of Quantum Physics
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