The Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in Post-War Italy's Cultural Context

Abstract

After World War II, a hyper-pragmatic paradigm was established in physics in most of the western countries, within which foundations of quantum mechanics were vastly dismissed as pointless speculations. In this paper, we show that in Italy, however, the interest toward quantum foundations was revived at the turn of the 1960s, mainly thanks to the initiative of Franco Selleri, who started criticising the contents and the practice of modern physics (in the context of capitalistic society), and thought that the solution was to be sought in a rethinking of the foundations of the discipline. In 1969, supported by Luis de Broglie himself, Selleri wrote a paper reviving the idea of hidden variables and he successfully proposed to the Italian Physical Society to devote the "Varenna School" of 1970 to quantum foundations. This school's historical pivotal importance is twofold: it gathered some of the most preeminent international physicists working on the foundations of quantum theory; and it provided a first platform for young physicists to express their dissatisfaction towards "scientism". In fact, Selleri's highly politicised views found the favour of a critical mass of young, left-wing physicists, who made of quantum foundations their main topic of research in the 1970s. Although these physicists understood very early the central importance of Bell's theorem, their (ideological) aim was to demonstrate that quantum theory could have limits of validity. Such a research program turned out to be unsuccessful, yet the Italian endeavour was worldwide one of the first and most significant revivals of the interest towards quantum foundations.