The Statistical Interpretation: Born, Heisenberg, and von Neumann, 1926–27

Abstract

This chapter traces the development and transformation of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics from Max Born’s first suggestion in his collision papers of 1926 to von Neumann’s axiomatic formulation in 1927. Born had initially introduced only statistical distributions over stationary states, did not discuss measurements and only tentatively embraced an indeterministic picture. Further work, among others by Heisenberg, suggested that indeterminism was fundamental and associated with measurements. But the now familiar picture of quantum states collapsing upon measurement was developed by von Neumann in 1927. Von Neumann’s work also provided the basis for claims that indeterminism could not be eliminated from quantum mechanics. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how the statistical interpretation relates to indeterminism.