B Where Can I find the Einstein vs. Bohr Full Debates

[learis]

I've tried every way google searching to find the actual einstein bohr debates. But it's basically just commentary and summaries on them.

I want to actually read the debates word for word, as well as any other dialogue the two had between them that was made public. Does anyone have any sources?

 

[lekh2003]

This task is proving to be exceedingly difficult as I delve into it. I expected to find manuscripts of such events or letters between them, but was disappointed to not be able to find anything.

We need a bigger workforce to find these debates in original script form. I suspect that the debates were not recorded word for word or even in English for that matter.

 

[phyzguy]

You mean they weren't posted on YouTube? Unbelievable! Did you try looking for the GoPro recording?

 

[lekh2003]

You mean they weren't posted on YouTube? Unbelievable! Did you try looking for the GoPro recording?

Come on, wise guy. Have you found any actual manuscripts or real documentation and quotings from the debates?

 

[f95toli]

Come on, wise guy. Have you found any actual manuscripts or real documentation and quotings from the debates?

AFAIK the "debates" mainly refers to discussions between them when they met in person; i.e they were informal discussions (albeit with other people in the room).
I don't think it occurred to anyone at the time that they would turn out to be historically important.
Hence, the only written records from the time will be letters. diary entries etc.

 

[fresh_42]

At least there can be found articles and books about it, which themselves hopefully contain references.

http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783540402961
http://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/physik/bohr-einstein-dialog/1814
http://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/physik/solvay-konferenzen/13426

So it looks as good old research work in real world libraries would be necessary. Pauli's letters and the Solvay conferences should be a good starting point, as both tend to include written material, resp. references.

 

[kith]

As others have already remarked, I don't think that the actual debates have been recorded. The only first-hand account which I could find is Bohr's 1949 article "Discussions with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics" and Einstein's (very general) reply to it.

 

[jtbell]

http://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/physik/solvay-konferenzen/13426

I was thinking about the Solvay conferences, myself. I remember reading somewhere a long time ago (maybe in one of George Gamow's popular-level books) about how Bohr presented a problem at one of those conferences one day, and Einstein came back the next day with a solution. The conferences weren't literally recorded as far as I know, but I think transcribers or reporters prepared summaries of the discussions which were published in the conference proceedings.

 

[phyzguy]

Come on, wise guy. Have you found any actual manuscripts or real documentation and quotings from the debates?

Apologies for my sarcasm. I was trying to make the point that, since modern recording devices didn't exist, I doubt that there is any transcript of the discussions. It was just a bunch of guys sitting around in a room talking.

 

[vanhees71]

As far as I know, this was a kind of ping-pong-like game between Einstein and Bohr. Einstein day after day represented some way to avoid the uncertainty principle, proving the probabilistic nature of the natural laws on the microscopic level wrong. Over night Bohr was struggling to refute the criticism and everyday succeeded. At one occasion, he used Einstein's general relativity as an argument against one of Einstein's gedanken experiments. There's a letter by Ehrenfest in the collected works of Bohr, where you can read how stimulating this was for all the attendees of this conference, watching the two giants of their science arguing against each other.

 

[stevendaryl]

As far as I know, this was a kind of ping-pong-like game between Einstein and Bohr. Einstein day after day represented some way to avoid the uncertainty principle, proving the probabilistic nature of the natural laws on the microscopic level wrong. Over night Bohr was struggling to refute the criticism and everyday succeeded. At one occasion, he used Einstein's general relativity as an argument against one of Einstein's gedanken experiments. There's a letter by Ehrenfest in the collected works of Bohr, where you can read how stimulating this was for all the attendees of this conference, watching the two giants of their science arguing against each other.

If it's really the case that General Relativity is needed to refute one of Einstein's arguments against quantum mechanics, then that's pretty amazing. It would seem to mean that General Relativity (or something like it) is implied by quantum mechanics.

 

[Demystifier]

If it's really the case that General Relativity is needed to refute one of Einstein's arguments against quantum mechanics, then that's pretty amazing. It would seem to mean that General Relativity (or something like it) is implied by quantum mechanics.

I have shown that general relativity is in fact not needed to refute the Einstein's argument against QM:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.1139

 

[martinbn]

If it's really the case that General Relativity is needed to refute one of Einstein's arguments against quantum mechanics, then that's pretty amazing. It would seem to mean that General Relativity (or something like it) is implied by quantum mechanics.

I think in this case (the example with the box that's drawn exceptionally realistic with all the bolts) it is only the equivalence principle that is used. Bohr does not even mention the field equations.

 

[Demystifier]

I think in this case (the example with the box that's drawn exceptionally realistic with all the bolts) it is only the equivalence principle that is used. Bohr does not even mention the field equations.

Yes, but my paper still shows that not even the equivalence principle is needed to correctly resolve the Einstein's photon-in-the-box paradox.

 

[martinbn]

Yes, but my paper still shows that not even the equivalence principle is needed to correctly resolve the Einstein's photon-in-the-box paradox.

Even better. GR shouldn't be implied in any way or form from QM.

 

[Demystifier]

Even better. GR shouldn't be implied in any way or form from QM.

I agree. But still, there is a currently popular conjecture in the string-theory community that quantum entanglement and gravity are equivalent.

 

[martinbn]

I agree. But still, there is a currently popular conjecture in the string-theory community that quantum entanglement and gravity are equivalent.

Is the gravity in that conjecture GR?

 

[protonsarecool]

Is the gravity in that conjecture GR?

Yes. More specifically, Susskind et al. conjecture that quantum entanglement and Einstein-Rosen bridges (ie. wormholes) are really the same ("ER=EPR"), and from that somehow follows that QM=GR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER=EPR
https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03040

 

[dextercioby]

Just for the record, were the lectures/talks from the Solvay conferences from those years '25 to '35 held in English or in German? (Pretty sure Dirac knew German).

 

[phyzguy]

Just for the record, were the lectures/talks from the Solvay conferences from those years '25 to '35 held in English or in German? (Pretty sure Dirac knew German).

Interesting question. The conference titles give on this Wikipedia site are in French. Since the conference was in Belgium, maybe the talks were in French.

 

[fresh_42]

I've also found French titles from another source. As the rest of the page is in German, I suspect that the conference language was indeed French, for otherwise the titles wouldn't have been quoted in French. However, a complete different question is, whether Bohr and Einstein used it for their more or less private game. Bohr had been in UK quite some time and also visited Germany on various occasions, so he might have been spoken those languages, too$^*).$ I've even found video material from 1927 on youtube, however, to distinguish languages by lip reading is more than I'm capable of.

$^*)$ I have found letters between Bohr and Pauli, which were written in German. They had no reference for a translation, so either they wrote it in German or their secretaries did. At least it indicates, that they might have had their debates in German, despite the fact of a French conference language.

 

[jtbell]

I remember reading in one of Gamow's books that Bohr spoke German well, although with "Danishisms." So I would expect any personal conversations between him and Einstein to have been in German.

 

[dextercioby]

I remember reading in one of Gamow's books that Bohr spoke German well, although with "Danishisms." So I would expect any personal conversations between him and Einstein to have been in German.

Maybe in "30 years that shook physics?"

 

[jtbell]

Maybe in "30 years that shook physics?"

Yes, that's it! While you were posting, I was rummaging through my closet looking for it. When I retired and cleaned out my office, I didn't have enough space on my bookshelves at home, so most of my physics books ended up on the floor of the closet. I really need to re-organize things here.

Anyway, that comment is in a footnote to a translation of the Faust parody which was performed by some of Bohr's students at his institute in 1932, in which the Faust characters "map" onto various physics people and concepts: the Lord = Bohr, Mephistopheles = Pauli, Faust = Ehrenfest, Gretchen = the neutrino... and the Auerbach Keller = Mrs. Ann Arbor's speakeasy!

 

[microsansfil]

Interesting question. The conference titles give on this Wikipedia site are in French. Since the conference was in Belgium, maybe the talks were in French.

The reports are in French

The first Solvay Conference "Radiation Theory and the Quanta" report is in French.
The second Solvay Conference "The Structure of Matter" report is in French
...

Find from this book :

THE SOLVAY CONFERENCES ON PHYSICS
Aspects of the Development of Physics since 1911

Radiation Theory and the Quanta*
* La Théorie du Rayonnement et les Quanta, Rapports et Discussions de la Réunion tenue à Bruxelles, du 30 Octobre au 3 Novembre 1911, Publiés par MM. P. Langevin et M. de Broglie, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1912.

The Structure of Matter*
* La Structure de la Matière, Rapports et Discussions du Conseil de Physique tenu a Bruxelles du
27 au 31 Octobre 1913, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1921.

...

Best regards
Patrick