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Memories and Matrices
Suman Seth
Cornell University
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Kuhn on Scientist’s Memories
• “Often it turns out that not just their beliefs
but their very modes of thought were
different from the ones to which their
discoveries gave rise…”
• “Entry into a discoverer’s culture often proves
acutely uncomfortable, especially for
Kuhn: Normal and Revolutionary
• Normal: Puzzle-solving within a paradigm
• Revolutionary: Producing a new paradigm.
• Normal science Anomalies Crisis
• A Revolution ushers in a new normal scientific
Thomas Kuhn, Interviewing Werner
Heisenberg, 1963
• By 1923, at least around Copenhagen—I’m not
sure now it was then in Munich—it’s perfectly
clear that what I will call a “crisis” exists and is
recognized with respect to the problems in
quantum mechanics. It’s clear in things that Bohr
said, it’s clear at least by what Bohr thinks Born
said, its clear for many people in that 1923 Bohr
Heft of Naturwiss. and in other places. But it is by
no means clear to me when that strong attitude
came, how it developed, and more particularly,
where it developed.
Leading the witness doesn’t always
work… Kuhn interviews Dirac, 1962
• TSK: Was there also that sense which again people
speak of on the continent that something fundamental
now had to come to get around these problems that
were just not responding. That there was something
fundamentally the matter?
• D: I am not sure that that is so. They had the BohrSommerfeld method of quantization and they thought
it would have to be extended in some way…I don’t
think people suspected that one would need such a
complete revolution…It rather came as a surprise to
me when Heisenberg’s ideas came out.
Memory is a tricky thing—particularly when talking of crisis…
Heilbron interviews Pauling, 1964
P: But while Sommerfeld was here, he emphasised very strongly the anomaly
of the inner quantum number and the outer quantum number—well at
least he talked about the inner quantum number and the outer quantum
P: So that they introduce an azimuthal quantum number; in fact they
introduce two azimuthal quantum numbers and then in talking about the
s, p, d separation you use one and in talking about the fine structure
splitting you use the other. And the question is how can you have two
quantum numbers that describe the eccentricity of the orbit? It only has
one eccentricity. So this was brought out, and my memory—I have to
change my memory. Sommerfeld just talked along glibly about the inner
azimuthal quantum number without giving anybody, any auditor, any
impression that there was anything funny about it. [my italics]
Arnold Sommerfeld (18681951)
Modellmässigkeiten (matters according to models)
Gesetzmässigkeiten (matters according to
empirical laws)
Modellmässigkeiten vs Gesetzmässigkeiten
(Sommerfeld, 1919)
…at the moment we are at a loss with the
modellmässigen (model-based) meaning of
the line-multiplicities of the non-hydrogenic
elements, in spite of repeated efforts from
various sides. All the more valuable are all
the lawful aspects [Gesetzmässigkeiten] that
present themselves empirically for the linemultiplicities, above all when they are of
such a radical and simple kind as those here
at hand.
Atombau (3rd Ed., 1922)
I attach particular importance to the
introduction of the inner quantum numbers
and to the systematic arrangement of the
anomalous Zeeman effects. The regularities
that here obtain throughout are primarily of an
empirical nature, but their integral character
demands from the outset that they be clothed
in the language of quanta. This mode of
explanation, just like the regularities
themselves, is fully established and is unique.
Sommerfeld, Innsbruck Lecture,
September 1924
…I would like to say a few words about the soundness
of our Modellvorstellungen. The difficulties that
obtrude ever more clearly into atomic physics appear
to me to lie less in an immoderate application of the
quantum theory and much more in a perhaps
Modellvorstellungen. Certainly the Hydrogen model
functions correctly in all cases (except perhaps in
magnetic fields) and certainly Bohr’s
explanation of the chemical systematics of the periodic
system is sound in general terms. But the phenomena
are much simpler than one would expect according to
the model... The atomic model would then be more of
a calculational scheme [Rechenschema] than a state of
reality [Zustandsrealität].
Pauli to Sommerfeld
6 December, 1924
I found it particularly beautiful in the presentation of the
complex structure that you have left all modellmässig
considerations to one side. The model-idea now finds
itself in a difficult, fundamental [prinzipiellen] crisis,
which I believe will end with a further radical sharpening
of the opposition between classical and quantum
theory. One now has the impression with all models,
that we speak there a language that is not sufficiently
adequate for the simplicity and beauty of the quantum
world. For that reason I found it so beautiful that your
presentation of the complex structure is completely free
of all model-prejudices.
Summary: 4 Questions
• History
1) Which sub-groups of the community saw a
2) Why? More specifically, how was this sense of
crisis related to their technical practices?
• Memory
3) Do WE regard the years before 1925 as a crisis
because they were followed by a ‘revolution’?
4) Were WE to call the crisis into question, does this
make the revolution less revolutionary?
For further details…