The grand "Soviet experiment" constituted an attempt to greatly accelerate and even shortcut the gradual course of historical development on the assumption of presumed knowledge of the general laws of history. This paper discusses the parts of that experiment that directly concerned scientific research and, in fact, anticipated or helped define important global changes in the functioning of science as a profession and an institution during the twentieth century. The phenomenon of Soviet, or socialist, science is analyzed here from the comparative international perspective, with attention to similarities and reciprocal influences, rather than to the contrasts and dichotomies that have traditionally interested cold war-type historiography. The problem is considered at several levels: philosophical (Soviet thought on the relationship between science and society and the social construction of scientific knowledge); institutional (the state recognition of research as a separate profession, the rise of big science and scientific research institutes); demographic (science becoming a mass profession, with ethnic and gender diversity among scientists); and political (Soviet-inspired influences on the practice of science in Europe and the United States through the social relations of science movement of the 1930s and the Sputnik shock of the 1950s).

ArgumentThe revolutionary transformation in Russian science toward the Soviet model of research started even before the revolution of 1917. It was triggered by the crisis of World War I, in response to which Russian academics proposed radical changes in the goals and infrastructure of the country’s scientific effort. Their drafts envisioned the recognition of science as a profession separate from teaching, the creation of research institutes, and the turn toward practical, applied research linked to the military and industrial needs of the nation. The political revolution and especially the Bolshevik government that shared or appropriated many of the same views on science, helped these reforms materialize during the subsequent Civil War. By 1921, the foundation of a novel system of research and development became established, which in its most essential characteristics was similar to the U.S. later phenomenon known as “big science.”

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Quantum mechanics presents an impressive record. It became the backbone of most research in physics, led to applications such as the transistor and laser, and prompted an upheaval in the philosophy of science. This century of conquests has also been a time of ongoing debates about the foundations and interpretation of the theory, which has been referred to as the quantum controversy. This Handbook is a survey on these debates. Some of the so-called “interpretations” are not interpretations of a fixed formalism, they are different theories, thus it has been a debate about the interpretations and the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this volume, the term “history of interpretations” is used for the sake of brevity. The successive parts of the Handbook deal with the scientific and philosophical issues under debate, historical landmarks, places and contexts, historical and philosophical theses, and the proliferation of interpretations.

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