ABSTRACT
“But this is dreadful,” Grete Hermann said. “On the one hand, you claim that your knowledge of the Radium B atom is incomplete inasmuch as you cannot tell when and in what direction the electron will be emitted, while, on the other hand, you tell me that your knowledge is complete because, if there were further determinants, you would get into trouble with other experiments. But our knowledge cannot possibly be complete and incomplete at the same time. The whole thing is sheer nonsense… I was wondering why our inability to discover the causes of, say, the emission of an electron means that we must stop searching further. Admittedly, you don’t forbid this search, but you claim that it is futile since no further determining factors can be found. Indeed, you contend that, if only it is formulated in precise mathematical language, the indeterminacy allows a definite prediction in another experiment. And this, too, you claim is borne out by the results. If you argue like that, you turn uncertainty into a physical reality, with an objective character, while, normally speaking, uncertainty is a synonym for ignorance, and as such something purely subjective.”
