Paths to quantum theory historically viewed

Friedrich Hund

doi:10.1063/1.3048403

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Paths to quantum theory historically viewed

AUG 01, 1966

If Bohr had been a lawyer, if, for some reason, one or more of the great discoveries had not been made, physicists would still have arrived at a complete and consistent quantum theory, stepping on the stones provided by other men’s work. A few roads not taken might have made things happen faster than they did.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3048403

Friedrich Hund

THE ACTUAL COURSE of history is a complicated network. In the development of science it is less complicated than in political history because in science there is more internal consistency and more compulsion from the object of study. But in science history, too, we have chance and accident along with consistency and consequence. Let us now consider how far the growth of quantum theory, the different ways it has actually gone, has been by consistency and how far by chance.

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Friedrich Hund, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Göttingen.