An Attempt to Imagine Parts of the Reality of the Micro-world

1. ABSTRACT Quantum mechanics is the theory used to 'describe' the processes that take place in the micro-world. From the start quantum mechanics has been a 'strange' theory, in the sense that it seemed to contradict in various ways the image of a micro-world consisting of 'objects' moving around in a three dimensional space, and interacting with each other in this three dimensional space. So from the advent of the theory a lot of disagreement existed as to the 'physical meaning' of this quantum theory, and a lot of discussions of a philosophical nature have taken place among the founding fathers. Only however during the last years experiments have been performed that, independently of the strangeness of the quantum theory, confront us directly with the strangeness of the reality of the microworld. We have in mind the experiments on the EPR problem. In our opinion to be able to 'understand' the reality of this micro-world, it will be necessary to introduce new concepts, and become aware of old 'classical' prejudices. Certainly in not such a radical way as proposed by what is sometimes called the 'California interpretation' of quantum mechanics, but also in not such a vague way as is proposed by what is called the 'Copenhagen interpretation' of quantum mechanics. Since we nowadays have very 'specific' results, on very refined experiments, we should start 'imagining' how this 'micro-reality' is.