Лекция 12 курса "Альберт Эйнштейн и революции в физике". Весна 2026

The final lecture of the course is devoted to Albert Einstein's role in quantum mechanics—its history and modernity. A distinctive feature of Einstein's style was to select only fundamental problems, fundamental issues, without wasting time on details. Einstein considered it his task to investigate fundamental questions, leaving aside any other aspects of research—not because he considered them devoid of value. His personal concern was not finding a theory that "works," but rather finding a theory deeply rooted in the fundamental principles of natural science. As early as 1924, in a letter to Maurice Solovine, Einstein wrote the following about his work: "My interest in science has in fact always been limited to the study of principles, and this provides the best explanation for all my behavior." For the same reason, I published so little: a strong desire to understand principles led to fruitless attempts. Today, many popular science books and lectures downplay Einstein's role in the creation and development of quantum mechanics. Statements like these are commonplace: "Einstein did not accept quantum mechanics (QM)," "Einstein did not recognize the statistical nature of QM," "Niels Bohr proved Einstein wrong," "Einstein fell behind scientific developments, lost his sense of innovation, and accomplished nothing after 1925," and so on. All of this is absolutely false. The term "quantum mechanics" was coined by Einstein himself, together with Max Born, in 1919–1924. Einstein had already used the term "quantum mechanics" in a letter to Max Born on June 4, 1919, and later in a letter to Paul Ehrenfest on May 31, 1924. Einstein's most important contribution to modern quantum mechanics was his introduction of a crucial physical phenomenon—nonlocality, or the nonlocal separability between two correlated subsystems of the EPR thought experiment, inherent in the formulation of quantum theory. (Einstein succeeded in explicitly identifying it as a physical concept, albeit in a negative sense.) The true nature of Einstein's well-known opposition to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics has often been underestimated or misunderstood. In fact, most quantum physicists—that is, physicists working in the field of quantum phenomena—seem to acknowledge that in the dialogue or debate between Einstein and Bohr, Bohr was indeed correct, and Einstein's position was a "petrification effect," as he wryly put it in a letter to his friend Max Born, who himself was not far from this opinion. Other prominent physicists who contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, such as Heisenberg, held similar views (Wolfgang Pauli, although an orthodox physicist, had a more nuanced understanding of Einstein's dissatisfaction with quantum mechanics). At best, they were baffled as to why one of the most prominent pioneers of quantum physics would not accept the theory when it had established itself on what they considered solid foundations and had proven itself to be perhaps the most powerful theory in the history of physics. A typical example of this view among physicists of the next generation who shared this belief is Abraham Pais's exposition of this topic. His book, "God is Subtle...," which is arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative scientific biography of Einstein and details Einstein's contributions to early quantum physics, is rather laconic when it discusses Einstein's rejection of quantum mechanics and underestimates, if not dismisses, the interest in Einstein's objections to improving our understanding of this theory. Regarding the 1935 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper, Pais concludes that "the conclusion had no impact on the subsequent development of physics, and it is doubtful that it ever will." Pais proved a poor prophet. The entire modern so-called second quantum revolution rests on the concept of nonlocality, grounded in experiments with Bell's inequality. In 1953, Einstein wrote: "I have no doubt that the present quantum theory (or, better, 'quantum mechanics') is the most perfect theory compatible with experience, since the description is based on the concepts of a particle and potential energy as elementary concepts." Therefore, it is clearly unfair to claim that he did not accept this theory. Even Bohr seems unaware that nonlocality lies at the heart of Einstein's argument, and did not even explicitly understand that it is also an inherent feature of quantum mechanics. The essence of the difference between Einstein and Bohr is that Einstein reasoned at the level of ontology, at the level of what exists, insisting that a complete description of physical systems must go beyond the description provided by ordinary quantum mechanics if the world is local. Bohr, by contrast, responded systematically at the level of epistemology, at the level of what we can know. Bohr did not respond to Einstein; he simply did not listen to his objections.