Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2025 number S5

This article explores the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics, closely related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and philosophical debates about the ontological or epistemological nature of quantum uncertainty. The author traces the evolution of views on this problem-from Einstein's concept of hidden variables to modern interpretations that view measurement as a violation of the closed nature of a quantum system and a process of obtaining information. The goal of the study is to connect modern interpretations of the observation problem with Max Planck's understanding of fundamental thermodynamic quantities (in particular, entropy) and compare it with the modern information approach to the problem of quantum measurements, which is based on Shannon's concept of entropy.The paper presents the meaning of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and its interpretations (the ontological interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg, and the epistemological interpretation of Einstein). The connection between the thermodynamic interpretation of the measurement process (based on the ideas of M. Planck) and information theory (K. Shannon's approach) is demonstrated. A comparative analysis of the concepts of entropy in Planck and Shannon is provided: their physical and informational interpretations, areas of application, and semantic emphases. Specific examples illustrating the change in a system's entropy upon the removal of a particle (an ideal gas, a crystal at a temperature close to absolute zero, a system with bound states) are considered.The main conclusions of the article are that entropy in thermodynamics (Planck) and information theory (Shannon) have a common statistical nature, but differ in context and the direction of "uncertainty": for Planck, it is a property of the system for the observer, while for Shannon, it is a property of the source for the receiver. The comparison of the thermodynamic and information approaches opens up prospects for a new understanding of the problem of measurements in quantum mechanics through the prism of information theory. The significance of this work lies in its interdisciplinary synthesis of ideas from thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and information theory, which allows for a deeper understanding of the nature of quantum uncertainty and the measurement process as an information exchange.