What a delightful adventure! I really appreciate what Adam Becker has done, probably not only because of his incredible book, but also because I belong to the minority who think the Copenhagen Interpretation is not satisfying and “Shut up and Calculate” doesn’t add up.

Quantum physics is tremendously successful and although it is considered the physics of ultra-small but there is really no boundary to its incredible contribution to the present progress in life.

Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli and others are truly founders of the first interpretation of quantum physics,the Copenhagen Interpretation. But the Copenhagen interpretation assumes a mysterious division between the microscopic world governed by quantum mechanics and a macroscopic world of [measurement] apparatus and observers that obeys classical physics.

For what matter, why should we care? Its mathematics makes accurate predictions; isn’t that enough?Quantum physics works, but ignoring what it tells us about reality means papering over a hole in our understanding of the world—and ignoring a larger story about science as a human process.

As Einstein said this “epistemology-soaked orgy” should come to an end. Albert Einstein was someone who was not on the same track with Copenhagen Interpretation, mainly because of its inability to have a realist approach about the real phenomena, and to some degree for its “spooky action at a distance” nature or its non-locality. Schrodinger, was also someone who never made compromise with Neils Bohr’s vague discussions and there were few physicists who dared to question the Copenhagen Interpretation.

A misunderstanding: Based on the 1926 Einstein’s famous “God doesn’t play dice”, almost all the Copenhagen physicists reffered Einstein’s problem to uncertainty principle, but in fact Einstein’s concern was with non-locality not uncertainty principle.

Schrodinger’s discovery of wave function and Max Born discovery of “a particle’s wave function in a location yields the probability of measuring the particle in that location “ were potential motives for further elaboration for Heisenberg to present “Uncertainty principle”. But Heisenberg and Schrodinger’s quest to show a more coherent nature of Quantum mechanics is probably the first interesting quests over the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Von Neuman’s interepretation: Von Neumann’s solution was to make the observer—whoever was looking—responsible for wave function collapse. “We must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer,” Von Neumann said. “Quantum mechanics describes the events which occur in the observed portion of the world, so long as they do not interact with the observing portion, with the aid of the [Schrödinger equation], but as soon as such an interaction occurs, i.e. a measurement, it requires the [collapse of the wave function].”

Von Neuman’s character as the most brilliant mathematician of his age never let the voice of Grete Hermann, someone who proved him wrong be listened just because she was a woman. Von Neuman’s proof and credit helped the popularity of Copenhagen Interpretation for decades later after the World war and the Manhattan Project.

Bohm’s interpretation: In Bohm’s interpretation of quantum physics, much of the mystery of the quantum world simply falls away. Objects have definite positions at all times, whether or not anyone is looking at them. Particles have a wave nature, but there’s nothing “complementary” about it—particles are just particles, and their motions are guided by pilot waves. This simple idea allowed Bohm to cut through the thicket of quantum paradoxes. The Copenhagen interpretation doesn’t let you ask what’s happening to Schrödinger’s cat before you look in the box, insisting only that it’s meaningless to talk about the unobservable. But, in Bohm’s pilot-wave interpretation, not only can you ask but there’s an answer: before you look in the box, the cat is either dead or alive, and opening the box merely reveals which is true. The act of observation has nothing to do with the condition of the cat.

The theory of quantum gravity: John Wheeler, was obsessed with his own disreputable problem, general relativity. Despite the theory’s universal acceptance, it wasn’t seen as a reasonable field of research at the time. Wheeler was interested in the same problem Einstein was trying to solve: marrying general relativity to quantum physics in a single theory of quantum gravity, with the ultimate goal of describing the entire universe, including its origin, in the still more disreputable nascent field of quantum cosmology.

The many world interpretation: Rejecting both von Neumann and Bohr, Everett came up with his own solution to the measurement problem. Rather than explaining wave function collapse, Everett stated that wave functions never collapse at all. This in itself was not new; Bohm said the same thing. But Bohm had also added particles with definite positions into the theory, which accounted for the outcomes of measurements. Everett didn’t add particles—he didn’t think he needed them. Instead, he insisted that a single universal wave function was all there was: a massive mathematical object describing the quantum states of all objects in the entire universe. This universal wave function, according to Everett, obeyed the Schrödinger equation at all times, never collapsing, but splitting instead. Each experiment, each quantum event, spun off new branches of the universal wave function, creating a multitude of universes in which that one event had every possible outcome. Everett’s shocking idea came to be known as the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum physics.

Bell’s theorem: Bell’s theorem really leaves only three unequivocal possibilities: either nature is nonlocal in some way, or we live in branching multiple worlds despite appearances to the contrary, or quantum physics gives incorrect predictions about certain experimental setups. No matter the outcome, Bell’s work presents a threat to the Copenhagen interpretation. Perhaps because it contradicts the widely received wisdom, physicists have long had particular difficulty understanding the true implications of Bell’s theorem—in fact, the misunderstandings began before it was even published. Bell’s work had inspired a full-blown quantum rebellion, the first truly widespread and serious challenge to the Copenhagen interpretation from within the physics community since the Bohr-Einstein debates.