We present a reconstruction of the studies on the Foundations of QuantumMechanics (FQM) carried out in Italy at the turn of the 1960s. Actually, theypreceded the revival of the interest of the American physicists towards the FQMaround mid-1970s, recently reconstructed by David Kaiser in a book of 2011. Anelement common to both cases is the role played by the young generation, eventhough the respective motivations were quite different. In the US they reactedto research cuts after the war in Vietnam, and were inspired by the New Agemood. In Italy the dissatisfaction of the young generations was rooted in thestudent protests of 1968 and the subsequent labour and social fights, whichchallenged the role of scientists. The young generations of physicists searchedfor new scientific approaches and challenged their own scientific knowledge androle. The criticism to the FQM and the perspectives of submitting them toexperimental tests were perceived as an innovative research field and thisattitude was directly linked to the search for an innovative and radicalapproach in the history of science. All these initiatives gave rise to boomingactivity throughout the 1970s, contributing to influence the scientificattitude and the teaching approach.
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