Abstract

A recent letter1 by van Kampen stimulated an interesting debate2–4 on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The central theme of the debate was a criticism to the (also recent) presence in the literature of “voluminous discussions” about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. That there still exists such discussion is what van Kampen calls the “scandal of quantum mechanics.” We claim that a weak point in the debate was a lack of a definition of the term interpretation. In the present note, we would like to make this meaning precise and to show how such a clarification is necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings. The concept of interpretation plays a key role in the history of physics, so we hope the present analysis might be helpful to students. Max Jammer,5 in his famous book, The philosophy of quantum mechanics, distinguishes four different meanings of the word interpretation. In what follows, we restrict our attention to only three different meanings, which we now try to clarify.