Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg: tre generazioni a confronto nelle rivoluzioni della fisica del Novecento

During the 5th Solvay Conference, held in Brussels in late 1927, Einstein was strongly criticized by Niels Bohr and the new generation of microphysicists for his strenuous rejection of quantum complementarity and the uncertainty principle. Protagonist of a theoretical revolution compared in importance by the old Max Planck to the Copernican one, Einstein saw Quantum Theory as an useful means to describe Nature on an atomic level, but he denied that it upheld a basis for the whole of physics. Einstein never agreed to give up the unified image of the world outlined by classical physics, founded on the principles of objectivity, causality and continuity, openly questioned, among others, by the young Werner Heisen- berg. Arguing in his Scientific Autobiography that science does not evolve gradu- ally toward truth, Planck candidly wrote about the revolutions in Physics: «A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because the opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it».