Heisenberg

Werner Karl Heisenberg

Born: 5 Dec 1901 in Würzburg, Germany
Died: 1 Feb 1976 in Munich, Germany

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Werner Heisenberg did important work in nuclear and particle physics, but his most important work was in quantum mechanics. He is best known for the Uncertainty Principle. He studied physics at Munich with his friend Pauli, where he worked under Sommerfeld. A lecture series by Niels Bohr convinced him to work on quantum theory.

Heisenberg invented matrix mechanics, the first version of quantum mechanics, in 1925. He published The Physical Principles of Quantum Theory in 1928. In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.

During the Second World War he headed the unsuccessful German nuclear weapons project. He was also interested in the philosophy of physics and wrote Physics and Philosophy (1962) and Physics and Beyond (1971).

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Heisenberg's work on quantum theory

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. A Hermann, Werner Heisenberg in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1976).
  4. C F von Weizsäcker, Werner Heisenberg (1977).
  5. M Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics in Historical Perspective (1974).
  6. D C Cassidy, Uncertainty : the life and science of Werner Heisenberg (New York, 1992).
  7. C Jungnickel and R McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature, 2 Volumes (Chicago, 1986).
  8. M Walker, Heisenberg, Goudsmit and the German atomic bomb, Physics today 43 (1) (1990), 52-60.
  9. T Powers, Heisenberg's war : the secret history of the German bomb (London, 1993).
  10. M MacPherson, Time bomb : Fermi, Heisenberg, and the race for the atomic bomb (New York, 1986).
  11. J Bernstein, What did Heisenberg tell Bohr about the bomb?, Scientific American 272 (5) (1995), 72-77. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996