The Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy 25 Years K.V. Laurikainen Honorary Symposium 2013 K. V. Laurikainen's Attempt to Establish the Philosophy of Physics as a Subject of Teaching and Research at the University of Helsinki Claus Montonen Ph.D., University of Helsinki E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. Throughout the period after his retirement from the chair of high energy physics K.V.Laurikainen worked towards getting his brand of the philosophy of science established as a subject of teaching and research at the University of Helsinki. This paper follows his attempts up to the end of his association with the Research Institute for Theoretical Physics (April 1991). In January 1979, K.V. Laurikainen retired from his chair in High Energy Physics (until 1978 Nuclear Physics) having reached the age of 63, the lowest possible allowed for retirement. To his friends and colleagues he distributed copies of his latest publication, the edited verbatim transcript of panel discussions held at the Symposium on the Foundations of Modern Physics, Loma-Koli, August 1977 [8]. Into the copies he had inserted a slip of paper reading \As a memory of the change of direction of work 31.1.1979, K.V. Laurikainen" (Muistoksi ty¨onsuunnan muutoksesta 31.1.1979). What was the change he was referring to? To understand this, we have to take a look at his previous career. Laurikainen studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the University of Helsinki, earning his Master degree in mathematics in 1940. For his Ph.D., he switched to theoretical physics, his first love being the theory of relativity. The war years delayed his studies, but in 1947 Rolf Nevanlinna managed to secure funds for Laurikainen to go to Z¨urichfor one year, and later to Sweden (mainly Lund) on several occasions between 1948 and 1950. In Z¨urichhe did meet the person who was to play a major role in Laurikainen´s work later, Wolfgang Pauli, but Pauli was not interested in the not-so-young Finnish student, and no real contact was established. Laurikainen defended his thesis on a topic in general relativity in 1950 [6]. Under the influence of Lamek Hulth´en,whom he had met in Lund, Laurikainen then switched to the study of the nuclear forces. The deuteron problem remained his main topic of research into the 1960's. In 1956, Laurikainen was appointed to an assistant professorship in physics at the University of Turku, and in 1960 to the newly created chair of nuclear physics at the University of Helsinki. At the same time, a new Department of Nuclear Physics was created with K. V. Laurikainen's Attempt to Establish the Philosophy of Physics as a Subject of Teaching and Research at the University of Helsinki2 Laurikainen at its head. The teaching of modern physics, especially in theoretical physics, in Finnish universities had fallen into a sorry state of decay during the post-war years (the only exception being the Helsinki University of Technology), and Laurikainen set out to change the state of affairs, first in Turku, where he found allies in Karl-Gustav Fogel and Bertel Qvist at the Swedish-speaking Abo˚ Akademi university, and later in Helsinki. Here he introduced the Swedish model of \two physics teaching", i.e. having physics and theoretical physics as two different subjects from the very beginning, and designed a modern curriculum in theoretical physics, large parts of which he taught himself. This model was copied at the universities in Turku and Oulu, and partly in Jyv¨askyl¨a.The teaching in theoretical physics in Helsinki was given by the Department of Nuclear Physics until 1968, when a separate Department of Theoretical Physics was formed. Through the efforts of Laurikainen, Rolf Nevanlinna and dean of the Faculty of Science, Ernst Palm´en,a national Research Institute of Theoretical Physics, located in the University of Helsinki, was founded in 1964. Laurikainen realized early the importance of computers in physics research. Already in Turku, he was instrumental in getting a computer to the university. Coming to Helsinki, and seeing that the University was dragging its feet in acquiring modern computer equipment, he took matters in his own hands and established a Computing Bureau at the Department of Nuclear Physics, the first computer of which was a donation from Sweden. An attempt was also made to initiate research in experimental nuclear physics. The Department of Physics had a self-built low-energy Van de Graaf accelerator. Laurikainen asked for funds for a cyclotron to his own department, but when these were denied, Laurikainen turned his attention to experimental high energy physics. The Finnish Physical Society, where Laurikainen was active, had in 1964 proposed that Finland should apply for observer status in CERN. Negotiations resulted in an informal \ad-hoc" agreement with CERN in 1966, according to which Finnish physicists were able to work at CERN and participate in experiments there, as long as the costs were paid from Finland. The funds for this were initially a special moment in the State Budget, later they were channeled through the Academy of Finland and its CERN-Committee, Laurikainen being the in the chair of the Committee for many years. Equipment for analysing bubble chamber films was acquired, and the training of experimental particle physicists was started. In 1972, cooperation in experimental particle physics with the research institute in Dubna, the Soviet Union, got under way. Through his tireless efforts, Laurikainen had thus in ten years managed to achieve an astonishing number of results: reforming the teaching of physics, including the establishment of several new chairs and teaching posts, training a new generation of theoretical and experimental particle physicists, founding a national research institute of theoretical physics and a computing bureau dedicated to physics, as well as initiating international collaboration in high energy physics. He had, however, always been interested in questions concerning philosophy and the foundations of physics. A high point of his student days had been attending the lectures of the charismatic professor of philosophy, Eino Kaila. To the very first issue of the journal of the Finnish Mathematical and Physical Societies, Arkhimedes, Laurikainen contributed a paper entitled \The picture of the world according to physics" K. V. Laurikainen's Attempt to Establish the Philosophy of Physics as a Subject of Teaching and Research at the University of Helsinki3 (Fysiikan maailmankuva,[5]), and subsequently he frequently gave lectures and wrote papers and books directed to the general public and touching on philosophical questions at the basis of physics. A landmark publication when considering the further development is to my mind the book from 1973, \The world of ideas in atomistics" (Atomistiikan aatemaailma, [7]). The bulk of the book consists of a description of atomic and subatomic physics, and was based on a series of lectures Laurikainen gave in 1971. The last chapter, based on talks given on radio in 1972, is however different. It states in embryo the research program Laurikainen was to pursue later: to argue that the indeterminism (\statistical causality" in Laurikainen's terms) inherent in quantum mechanics allows and is the expression of the intervention of God through miracles and the like. Laurikainen had gone through a personal crisis in the early seventies and turned to Christianity, and this belief he now wanted to reconcile with modern physics. The decision to leave nuclear and high energy physics might have been reinforced by the disappointment caused by the rejection of his proposal made in 1975 to establish a Research Institute of High Energy Physics on the model of the theoretical physics institute. Laurikainen took a sabbatical leave in 1976 and went to CERN. According to the preface of The Message of the Atoms [11], it was now that he discovered in the Pauli archives the correspondence between Pauli and Markus Fierz, which he was to put to powerful use in arguing for his view of what quantum mechanics implies. A native of Northern Karelia in the north-east of Finland, Laurikainen had over the years organized many international summer schools and symposia on nuclear, theoretical, high energy and particle physics in various locations of that beautiful province. A reflection of the change of his interests was that the theme of the 1977 symposium was the Foundations of Modern Physics: The 50th Anniversary of Quantum Mechanics. The plans were grandiose: invitations went out to i.a. P.A.M. Dirac, N.N. Bogolubov, O. Frisch, P. Kapitza and P. Jordan, who all in the end were unable to attend. The lineup of lecturers was nevertheless imposing: C. Møller, F.J. Belinfante, K. Bleuler, L. Van Hove, H.B.G. Casimir, V. Weisskopf, D. ter Haar, R. Haag, G. Wentzel and others[1]. An interesting point is to note that Laurikainen did not in his interventions neither in the proceedings nor in the recorded panel discussions mentioned earlier, ever mention Wolfgang Pauli or his views, but rather champions Bohr and Heisenberg. Apparently, the Pauli revelation lay still in the future. Thus we arrive at 1979. Laurikainen, worn out by two decades of administrative struggles and probably disappointed by his own modest research results in physics, saw the possibility to return to his old love, the philosophy of physics, and to combine it with his found again faith. It used to be customary that retired professors were appointed as docents, allowing them to lecture and retain some privileges in the university, and accordingly, Laurikainen applied for and received a docentship in theoretical physics. However, he now found out that with his formal positions gone, his authority had also diminished, and his old mode of operation, described by a colleague in the faculty as \banging the head against the wall until the wall yields", did no longer work.