Einstein and the Macroscopic Limit of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

In a letter to David Bohm which was written on 24th November 1954 and has been quoted by Jammer,1 Einstein wrote: ‘I do not believe in micro and macro laws, but only in (structural) laws of general validity.’ This remarkreflects one of the central tenets of his belief, and Einstein used it to substantiate his arguments which attempted to demonstratethe incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Einstein put forward various versions of these arguments, but there were two mainthemes. The first, which has certainly received the most attention in books and articles, concerns the question of hiddenvariables, entanglement and so on. We have discussed it in the previous two chapters, and, of course, this theme led to thework of John Bell, which is discussed in Chapter 9, and much that is in later chapters of this book.