Schrödinger's unpublished hidden-variable model in the 1944-45 debate over the "Collapse of Determinism"

Flavio Del Santo

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arXiv · 2610.20752

Schrödinger's unpublished hidden-variable model in the 1944-45 debate over the "Collapse of Determinism"

Flavio Del Santo

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Abstract

In the mid-1940s, the question of whether quantum mechanics could be supplemented by deterministic hidden variables resurfaced in a debate in ^textit{Nature}. I show that Erwin Schrödinger drafted a hitherto unpublished response to this controversy. In it, Schrödinger provided an explicit hidden-variable model, thereby showing that such models could not be ruled out. I reconstruct the historical context of this forgotten manuscript and publish here the first transcription and analysis. Importantly, Schrödinger's proposal should be understood as a proof of principle rather than as evidence of his commitment to determinism.

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Flavio Del Santo. 2026-10-14. Schrödinger's unpublished hidden-variable model in the 1944-45 debate over the "Collapse of Determinism". https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20752

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