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Science 23 September 1983:
Vol. 221. no. 4617, pp. 1251 - 1255
DOI: 10.1126/science.221.4617.1251
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Articles

Facing Quantum Mechanical Reality

Fritz Rohrlich 1

1 Professor of theoretical physics at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13210.

Two recent precision experiments provide conclusive evidence against any local hidden variables theory and in favor of standard quantum mechanics. Therefore the epistemology and the ontology of quantum mechanics must now be taken more seriously than ever before. The consequences of the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics are summarized in nontechnical language. The implications of the finiteness of Planck's constant (h > 0) for the quantum world are as strange as the implications of the finiteness of the speed of light (c < infin for space and time in relativity theory. Both lead to realities beyond our common experience that cannot be rejected.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)