This seems close to instrumentalism. It might be OK at the quatuum level, but
it leads to trouble above that. Copernicus's book was put on the index until
censored because he denied instrumentalism and actually suggested that his
theory might be real. The 5 places where the Starry messenger was censored were
all where he spoke of the reality of his theory. Galileo also got into trouble
for saying the same.
Jon
Steve Bishop wrote:
> The Bohr quote:
>
> "There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical
> description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out
> how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature."
>
> Can be found in the following:
>
> A. Petersen "The philosophy of Niels Bohr" The Bulletin of the Atomic
> Scientists, September 1963, p. 8
> (http://tonno.tesre.bo.cnr.it/~foschini/wisdom.html)
>
> Heinz R. Pagels,The Cosmic Code, p. 85
>
> Euan Squires, The Mystery of the Quantum World, Bristol: Institute of
> Physics Publishing, 1994, p. 117-8.
>
> However, I don't know where the original quote came from. The original
> context it seems was a defence of the Copenhagen Interpretation and
> anti-realism.
>
> Steve
>
> >Shuan wrote: "A fellow named Weinberg wrote it somewhere, but I can't track
> >it down). Science is not the search for all truth, just the truth about the
> >physical world."
> >
> >My notes say it was Neils Bohr, and the quotation is "It is wrong to think
> >that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns
> >only
> >what we can SAY about nature."
> >
> >At one time I had a citation on this but it has been misplaced. Does anyone
> >have it?
> >
> >Burgy
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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