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Science & Tech Quote by Erwin Schrodinger

"The verbal interpretation, on the other hand, i.e., the metaphysics of quantum physics, is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model"

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Schrodinger is doing something rarer than a takedown: he is drawing a bright line around physics to protect it from its own hype. By calling the “verbal interpretation” the “metaphysics of quantum physics,” he’s not dismissing philosophy as useless; he’s warning that the moment we shift from equations to stories, we start smuggling in assumptions we can’t test. The jab is quiet but pointed: physicists are world-class at calculation, less reliable when they turn their results into a picture of reality that feels intuitive.

The phrasing “on far less solid ground” matters. Quantum mechanics, even in Schrodinger’s lifetime, was already spectacularly successful as a predictive tool. What it didn’t deliver was ontological clarity: what the wavefunction is, what “measurement” does, whether probabilities describe ignorance or nature itself. His “more than forty years” is a clock held up to the field: if a framework is truly the bedrock of reality, why does it still require competing narrations (Copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot-wave) to make sense of it?

Context sharpens the subtext. Schrodinger helped build the formalism and then became one of its most famous skeptics, staging the cat thought experiment as a stress test for sloppy metaphysics. He’s arguing for intellectual hygiene: keep the mathematics, admit the interpretive gaps, and resist the temptation to turn quantum weirdness into instant worldview. The intent isn’t to weaken quantum physics; it’s to keep its authority honest.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Schrodinger, Erwin. (2026, February 16). The verbal interpretation, on the other hand, i.e., the metaphysics of quantum physics, is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-verbal-interpretation-on-the-other-hand-ie-140634/

Chicago Style
Schrodinger, Erwin. "The verbal interpretation, on the other hand, i.e., the metaphysics of quantum physics, is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-verbal-interpretation-on-the-other-hand-ie-140634/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The verbal interpretation, on the other hand, i.e., the metaphysics of quantum physics, is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-verbal-interpretation-on-the-other-hand-ie-140634/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.

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Erwin Schrodinger (August 12, 1887 - January 4, 1961) was a Scientist from Austria.

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