The End Of Physics
U Unnikrishnan Sivasankara Menon
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Niels Bohr was
six years younger to Einstein.
Bohr improvised the model of atom
devised by Rutherford:
the electrons orbited
around the nucleus
in ‘permitted' orbits in states
with discrete energies.
The atom emits radiation
in definite quantums called photons
that would drop the electrons
to another permitted orbit.
Einstein was all admiration,
‘this is the highest form
of musicality
in the sphere of thought'.
But
there was no way to determine
the moment of emission
nor the direction in which
the emitted photon will go.
Their probability alone
could be calculated,
no matter how much
information one had.
(2)
This idea about 'Zufall'
plagues me much,
Einstein wrote to Max Born.
It was quite intolerable to him
that an electron should
choose of its own free will
not only it's moment to jump off
but also the direction
of the resultant radiation.
‘I would rather be a cobbler
than a physicist', he lamented.
‘I have myself arrived at
something like this,
but if all this is true
it means the end of physics.'
(3)
It was not!
It was actually
the beginning!
of Quantum Mechanics.
'God does not play dice'
Einstein wished to disagree;
Bohr said, 'Einstein,
stop telling God what to do.'
Notes:
(1) Zufall (German) meaning chance, causality or randomness
(2) Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Kolmogorov's Modern Probability Theory had their origin in this discovery.
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