Abstract
MANY readers of Nature will have noted with interest Prof. H. T. H. Piaggio's clear and dispassionate article on the “Collapse of Determinism”1. Of particular interest is the statement, “But a third interpretation goes so far as to claim that the existence of causality is disproved”. This, of course, was the theme of Prof. E. T. Whittaker's Guthrie Lecture2. His arguments, however, are open to serious criticism, and there has been a tendency to throw the onus on Von Neumann's mathematical demonstration3. This, however, is also under criticism4 and there are many who, knowing how easily assumptions can lurk in analytical work, refuse to be mathematically bludgeoned. Harm can be done to the reputation of science by any who proclaim as a definite doctrine what is but a tentative effort.
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References
Nature, 154, 122 (1944).
Proc. Phys. Soc., 55, 459 (1943).
"Math. Grundlagen der Quanten-Mechanik" (1932).
Proc. Phys. Soc., 56, 195 (1944).
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WEST, G. Collapse of Determinism. Nature 154, 464–465 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154464b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154464b0
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