Foundations and interpretation of quantum mechanics
What does quantum mechanics actually tell us about physical reality — is the wavefunction real, does measurement cause genuine collapse, and could hidden variables restore classical determinism?
History and references
Still open in the literature as of 2026.
Among his 'three more great problems,' Ginzburg discussed the interpretation of quantum mechanics, noting most physicists (including his colleague Landau) were satisfied with the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation, while some critics sought a return to determinism via hidden variables. Since 1999, increasingly rigorous 'loophole-free' tests of Bell's inequality (2015, e.g. Hensen et al.) closed the detection and locality loopholes and confirmed quantum mechanics' predictions, definitively ruling out local hidden-variable theories; this body of work earned Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. This settles the experimental predictions but not the interpretive question: no consensus exists on which interpretation (Copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot-wave, objective collapse, QBism, etc.) is 'correct.'
A century after quantum mechanics was invented, its equations predict every experiment ever done to stunning precision, and physicists still cannot agree on what is really happening when nobody looks.
References
- What problems of physics and astrophysics seem now to be especially important and interesting (thirty years later, already on the verge of the XXI century)?, V L Ginzburg, Physics-Uspekhi 42 (4) 353-373, 1999
- The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022, NobelPrize.org press release (Aspect, Clauser, Zeilinger), 2022
- Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres, B. Hensen et al., Nature 526, 682, 2015
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