Bohr's response to EPR
pp. 1-31
in: Jan Faye, Henry J. Folse (eds), Niels Bohr and contemporary philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1994Abstract
The EPR paper (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, 1935; hereafter "EPR") appeared in the May 15, 1935 issue of Physical Review. The paper's impact was due in large part to their demonstration of an incompatibility between quantum mechanics (if regarded as both correct and complete) and plausible physical principles regarding physical reality. Two other items appeared in Physical Review before Bohr's own response: a note by Edwin C. Kemble (Kemble, 1935), and a letter by Arthur E. Ruark (Ruark, 1935). Both authors attempted, in a different way, to rescue quantum mechanics from the EPR conclusion by questioning the concept of reality that underlay the EPR argument. Similarly, Schrödinger wrote to Pauli: "For me this note [the EPR paper] was the cause to rethink once again the issue (which we know essentially for a long time already) ... that the expressions "to have a value really", "to be actually constituted so and so" and similar [expressions] are senseless phrases' (von Meyenn, et al., eds., 1985, Vol. 2, 406).1