A Selective History of Non-Relativistic QM - M. Kiessling

This is a talk that was given in the Rutgers Graduate/Undergraduate Online Seminar in Mathematical Physics (GUOSIMP). We host talks every other week on Thursdays from 12:10pm to 1:10pm EST.

Speaker: Michael Kiessling (Rutgers)

Accessibility of Talk: Beginner

Date: June 11th, 2020

Title: A Selective History of Non-Relativistic QM

Abstract: The Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg recently wrote `It is a bad sign that those physicists today who are most comfortable with quantum mechanics do not agree with one another about what it all means.' (See "The trouble with QM" folder on our online mathphys research group website, under "Resources" tab). The actual historical developments which gave us quantum theory are complex and, to some extent, explain why quantum theory is such a mess. In my talk I will instead present a selective history of cherry-picked events which show that it could have been different, and that a rational understanding of what quantum theory says about the physical world could have been reached long ago.