Article ID: CBB001213353

Emergence of Complementarity and the Baconian Roots of Niels Bohr's Method (2013)

unapi

I argue that instead of a rather narrow focus on N. Bohr's account of complementarity as a particular and perhaps obscure metaphysical or epistemological concept (or as being motivated by such a concept), we should consider it to result from pursuing a particular method of studying physical phenomena. More precisely, I identify a strong undercurrent of Baconian method of induction in Bohr's work that likely emerged during his experimental training and practice. When its development is analyzed in light of Baconian induction, complementarity emerges as a levelheaded rather than a controversial account, carefully elicited from a comprehensive grasp of the available experimental basis, shunning hasty metaphysically motivated generalizations based on partial experimental evidence. In fact, Bohr's insistence on the classical nature of observations in experiments, as well as the counterintuitive synthesis of wave and particle concepts that have puzzled scholars, seem a natural outcome (an updated instance) of the inductive method. Such analysis clarifies the intricacies of early Schrödinger's critique of the account as well as Bohr's response, which have been misinterpreted in the literature. If adequate, the analysis may lend considerable support to the view that Bacon explicated the general terms of an experimentally minded strand of the scientific method, developed and refined by scientists in the following three centuries.

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Authors & Contributors
Camilleri, Kristian
Blai Pié i Valls
Leyla Joaquim
Burwell, Jennifer
Stenholm, Stig
Stuewer, Roger H.
Concepts
Quantum mechanics
Physics
Complementarity
Philosophy of science
Theoretical physics
Philosophy
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
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