ABSTRACT

Quantum mechanics originated with a paper of 24-year-old Werner Heisenberg in early July 1925 seeking "to establish a quantum-theoretical mechanics based entirely on relations between quantities that are observable in principle". Heisenberg argues that experimental conditions limit simultaneous use of both kinematic and dynamic concepts in the description of an atomic object, complementarity more broadly enjoined an essential limitation in application of classical concepts to the quantum domain. The quantum-to-classical transition argument then targets the purported universality of quantum mechanics, the claim that descriptions of "real states" of macroscopic systems can be recovered as the classical limit of the more fundamental underlying quantum mechanical ones. The looming problem in quantum-to-classical transition is wave-particle duality and in particular the principle of superposition. As quantum mechanics holds that all possible physical information about the state of the individual system is represented by Ψ, the theory must be incomplete. Einstein suggest quantum orthodoxy holds a completely different sense of quantum mechanical completeness.