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Leifer, for his part, is holding out for something new. “I think the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics is none of the above,” he said.

He likens the current situation with quantum mechanics to the time before Einstein came up with his special theory of relativity. Experimentalists had found no sign of the “luminiferous ether” — the medium through which light waves were thought to propagate in a Newtonian universe. Einstein argued that there is no ether. Instead he showed that space and time are malleable. “Pre-Einstein I couldn’t have told you that it was the structure of space and time that was going to change,” Leifer said.

Quantum mechanics is in a similar situation now, he thinks. “It’s likely that we are making some implicit assumption about the way the world has to be that just isn’t true,” he said. “Once we change that, once we modify that assumption, everything would suddenly fall into place. That’s kind of the hope. Anybody who is skeptical of all interpretations of quantum mechanics must be thinking something like this. Can I tell you what’s a plausible candidate for such an assumption? Well, if I could, I would just be working on that theory.”