The problem of causality in physics [1931i]

Hans Reichenbach

pp. 326-342

in: Maria Reichenbach, Robert S. Cohen (eds), Selected writings 1909–1953, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

The transition occurring in present-day physics from the idea of a strict and regular connection between individual events to the statistical lawfulness of mass phenomena is regarded by many as a violation of a fundamental requirement of traditional science, as the beginning of a revolutionary epoch in physics, so to speak. The word has got around that science is undergoing a crisis, and there are even those who believe that the break with the classical tradition of physical investigation which they hold to be taking place is tantamount to a renunciation of science in the true sense, to a surrender of precise investigation conforming to laws to imprecise methods of chance connections between natural phenomena.