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Werner Karl Heisenberg

Werner Karl Heisenberg
Library of Congress

[b. Würzburg, Germany, December 5, 1901, d. Munich, February 1, 1976]

Heisenberg, with mathematical help from Max Born, developed in 1925 the first version of quantum mechanics, a matrix method of calculating the behavior of electrons and other subatomic particles. The method was superseded as a practical tool soon after by the more intuitive wave equation of Erwin Schrödinger, but matrix mechanics remains a great intellectual accomplishment. Heisenberg's most lasting contribution was his discovery in 1927 of the uncertainty principle, a foundation of quantum theory. A few years later he introduced a new quantum number called isotopic spin. Heisenberg continued to contribute to particle physics, introducing useful computational techniques in the 1950s.


 
 
Biography: Werner Karl Heisenberg

German physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976) was a pioneer in the formalization of atomic theory. He won the 1932 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the uncertainty principle, which states that it is impossible to specify the precise position and momentum of a particle at the same time. Heisenberg also developed the theory of matrix mechanics. During World War II he was director of the German atomic bomb project, which led to his brief imprisonment following the war and some controversy during the remainder of his career.

Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on December 5, 1901, in Würzburg, Germany, the son of August and Annie Wecklein Heisenberg. He received his education at the Maximilian Gymnasium in Munich and at the University of Munich, where his father was professor of Greek language and literature. Shortly before he began his university studies, he worked on a farm for several months and took active part in youth movements, searching for a way out of the social collapse that hit Germany at the end of World War I.

Heisenberg was also a talented pianist, an avid hiker, and an eager student of classical literature and philosophy. At the university, where he enrolled in 1920, Heisenberg soon established close contact with Arthur Sommerfeld, a chief figure in early modern physics, and with Sommerfeld's most outstanding student, Wolfgang Pauli, later a Nobel laureate. Heisenberg spent the winter of 1922-1923 at the University of Gettingen, where the physics department was rapidly establishing itself, with the help of Max Born, James Franck, and David Hilbert, as a center of theoretical physics. After taking his doctorate in Munich in 1923, Heisenberg went on a Rockefeller grant to Niels Bohr's institute in Copenhagen, where he eagerly studied the most creative and up-to-date speculations on atomic theory.

His Landmark Papers

The fusion of the influence of these mentors with the receptiveness of a most talented mind worked unusually well. No sooner had Heisenberg completed his stay in Copenhagen than he worked out, while recuperating on the shores of Helgoland from a heavy attack of hay fever, a comprehensive method of calculating the energy levels of "atomic oscillators." The method yielded very good results but appeared so strange that Heisenberg was undecided whether to submit his report for publication or "to throw it into the flames." Happily for science, he sent a copy of it to Pauli and, after receiving a favorable reply, he showed it to Born on his return to Gettingen in June 1925. Born realized its importance and had it sent to the Physikalische Zeitschrift, where it was immediately printed under the title, "On Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations." The person most preoccupied with the "strange" mathematical formalism in Heisenberg's paper was Born himself, who after eight days of constant reflection discovered that it corresponded to the rules of matrix calculus.

Heisenberg's paper earned its author immediate fame and recognition. At Bohr's recommendation, in 1926 he was appointed lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Copenhagen. It was there that Heisenberg gave much thought to the apparent discrepancy between two formulations of quantum theory, one based on matrix calculus, the other on wave equations elaborated by Erwin Schroedinger. In the course of his work on this question, Heisenberg realized that only those physical situations are "meaningful" in quantum mechanics in which the differences of the noncommutative products of conjugate variables occur. He immediately saw that, because of these differences, one cannot determine simultaneously the position and velocity of an atomic particle or the energy level and its timing of an atomic oscillator.

The recognition of this fact led Heisenberg to the formulation of the famous uncertainty principle, which appeared in 1927 on the pages of the Physikalische Zeitschrift in an article entitled, "On the Visualizable Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics." Heisenberg's The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) also is considered a classic in this field. Heisenberg's rise was now as rapid in the academic as in the scientific world. In 1927, at the age of 26, he became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leipzig. He was the recipient, along with Schroedinger and Paul Dirac, of the Nobel Prize for physics for 1932. In 1941 he took the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin and the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. During this flurry of academic activity, in 1937 he married Elisabeth Schumacher, and they had seven children.

Questionable Role in War

As a theoretical scientist, Heisenberg was initially held in low regard and even considered suspect by the Nazi government. However, when World War II began, the government appointed him as director of the German uranium project, and he worked on developing an atomic bomb for Germany throughout the war. Heisenberg was arrested and placed in Allied captivity in England from April 1945 until the summer of 1946. His role during the war continues to be a source of controversy.

Later Career

After World War II Heisenberg did much to reorganize scientific research as head of the Max Planck Institute of Physics and of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In the early 1950s Heisenberg turned with great vigor toward the formulation of a "unified theory of fundamental particles," stressing the role of symmetry principles. This theory was intensively discussed at an international conference in 1958, the year he moved to the University of Munich as professor of physics. He presented his thought on this subject in Introduction to the Unified Field Theory of Elementary Particles (1966).

In 1955-1956 Heisenberg gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, which were printed under the title Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. He also published the autobiographical Physics and Beyond (1971) and several books dealing with the philosophical and cultural implications of atomic and nuclear physics, all of which are available in English translation.

Heisenberg retired in 1970, although he continued to write on a variety of topics. His health began to fail in 1973, and shortly thereafter he became seriously ill. He died on February 1, 1976 in Munich.

Further Reading

The best treatment of the conceptual foundations of Heisenberg's achievements in physics is the study by Patrick A. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg (1965); The place of Heisenberg's discoveries in the development of modern physics is given with all the technical details in the work by Max Jammer, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (1966); For a popular but still informative presentation of the origins and techniques of quantum mechanics see Banesh Hoffmann, The Strange Story of the Quantum (1959); For an account sprinkled with anecdotal details see the works of George Gamow, Biography of Physics (1961) and Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory (1966).

Additional Sources

Finkelstein, David, Quantum Relativity: A Synthesis of the Ideas of Einstein and Heisenberg, Springer-Verlag, 1996.

Peierls, Rudolf Ernst, Atomic Histories, American Institute of Physics, 1996.

See Walker, Mark, Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb, Plenum Press, 1995, for a critical examination of Heisenberg's role in developing an atomic bomb for Germany during World War II.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Werner Karl Heisenberg

(born Dec. 5, 1901, Würzburg, Ger. — died Feb. 1, 1976, Munich, W.Ger.) German physicist. Educated at Munich and Göttingen, he taught at the University of Leipzig (1927 – 41) and directed the Max Planck Institute for Physics (1942 – 76). In 1925 he solved the problem of how to account for the stationary discrete energy states of an anharmonic oscillator, a solution that launched the development of quantum mechanics. In 1927 he published his famous uncertainty principle. He also made important contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulence, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932 for his work on quantum mechanics. He led Germany's efforts in World War II (1939 – 45) to develop an atomic bomb.

For more information on Werner Karl Heisenberg, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Heisenberg, Werner
(vĕr'nər hī'zənbĕrk) , 1901–76, German physicist. One of the founders of the quantum theory, he is best known for his uncertainty principle, or indeterminacy principle, which states that it is impossible to determine with arbitrarily high accuracy both the position and momentum (essentially velocity) of a subatomic particle like the electron. The effect of this principle is to convert the laws of physics into statements about relative probabilities instead of absolute certainties. In 1926, Heisenberg developed a form of the quantum theory known as matrix mechanics, which was quickly shown to be fully equivalent to Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics. His 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics cited not only his work on quantum theory but also work in nuclear physics in which he predicted the subsequently verified existence of two allotropic forms of molecular hydrogen, differing in their values of nuclear spin.

Heisenberg was a student of Arnold Sommerfeld, an assistant to Max Born, and later a close associate of Niels Bohr. He taught at the universities of Leipzig (1927–41) and Berlin (1942–45). During World War II he headed German efforts in nuclear fission research, which failed to develop a nuclear reactor or atomic bomb. Although he claimed after the war to have had qualms about building nuclear weapons, it seems likely that the reasons Germany failed to do so were technical and logistical.

In 1958 he became director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics, now located in Munich. His later work concerned the so-called S-matrix approach to nuclear forces and the possibility that space and time are quantized, or granular, in structure. His Physics and Philosophy (1962) and Physics and Beyond (1971) remain popular accounts of the revolutions in modern physics.

Bibliography

See D. C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (1993); R. P. Brennan, Heisenberg Probably Slept Here: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Physicists of the 20th Century (1996).

 
Science Dictionary: Werner Heisenberg
(heye-zuhn-burg)

A German physicist of the twentieth century. Heisenberg was one of the founders of quantum mechanics, the discoverer of the uncertainty principle, and a leader of Germany's attempt to construct an atomic bomb in World War II.

 
Quotes By: Heisenberg

Quotes:

"The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand."

 
Wikipedia: Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
180px-Werner_Heisenberg.jpg
Werner Karl Heisenberg
Born December 5 1901(1901--)
Würzburg, Germany
Died February 1 1976 (aged 74)
Munich, Germany
Residence Germany
Nationality German
Field Physicist
Institutions University of Göttingen(1924)
University of Copenhagen(1926-27)
University of Leipzig(1927-41)
University of Berlin(1941)
University of St. Andrews(1955-56)
University of Munich (1958)
Alma mater University of Munich
Academic advisor   Arnold Sommerfeld
Notable students   Felix Bloch Nobel_Prize.png
Edward Teller
Rudolph E. Peierls
Friedwardt Winterberg
Known for Uncertainty Principle
Quantum Mechanics
Notable prizes Nobel_Prize.png Nobel Prize for Physics (1932)

Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. He was born in Würzburg, Germany and died in Munich. Heisenberg was the head of the German nuclear energy project, though the nature of this project, and his work in this capacity, has been heavily debated. He is most well-known for discovering one of the central principles of modern physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Family

He was the son of Dr. August Heisenberg, professor of Byzantine studies at the University of Würzburg, Germany and Annie Heisenberg (née Wecklein). In 1937, he married Elisabeth Schumacher with whom he had seven children, including neurobiologist and geneticist Martin Heisenberg.

Quantum mechanics

As a student, he met Niels Bohr in Göttingen in 1922. A fruitful and life long collaboration developed between the two.

He invented matrix mechanics, the first formalization of quantum mechanics in 1925, which he developed with the help of Max Born and Pascual Jordan. His uncertainty principle, developed in 1927, states that the simultaneous determination of two paired quantities, for example the position and momentum of a particle, has an unavoidable uncertainty. Together with Bohr, he formulated the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1932 "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen" .

Heisenberg in 1932, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
Enlarge
Heisenberg in 1932, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics

In the late 20s and early 30s, Heisenberg collaborated with Wolfgang Pauli, and along with Paul Dirac, developed an early version of quantum electrodynamics. However, at the time, nobody could get rid of the infinities plaguing the theory, and it was only after World War II that a technique called renormalization was invented to take care of the infinities.

After the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick in 1932, Heisenberg proposed the proton-neutron model of the atomic nucleus and used it to explain the nuclear spin of isotopes.

During the early days of the Nazi regime in Germany, Heisenberg was harassed as a "White Jew" for teaching theories that Albert Einstein, a prominent Jew, had conceived. Teaching these theories was in contradiction to the Nazi-sanctioned Deutsche Physik movement. After a character investigation that Heisenberg himself instigated and passed, SS chief Heinrich Himmler banned any further political attacks on the physicist.

Work during the War

Nuclear fission was discovered in Germany in 1938. Heisenberg remained in Germany during World War II, ostensibly to help rebuild German science after the extensive brain drain that occurred in the 1930s as a result of Nazi policies banning Jews from government jobs, which led to the expulsion of Jewish physics professors from the state universities. Heisenberg by all accounts was loyal to Germany, but not the Nazi regime. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (of which he was the Director) was appropriated by the Nazi Heereswaffenamt (Army Ordnance Board). He belonged to a team led by Walther Bothe to develop one of Germany's many nuclear weapon/nuclear power programs, but the extent of his cooperation in the development of weapons has been a subject of much controversy. Heisenberg's work consisted of various efforts to create sustained fission reactions. A rival atomic bomb project was led by Kurt Diebner for Heereswaffenamt, who, with Paul Harteck worked on uranium enrichment and a uranium-based atomic bomb. Neither team was successful before the end of the war, because of various factors including complications from various invasions toward the end of the war and lack of funding from the government.

There has been speculation that Heisenberg had moral qualms and tried to slow down the project. Heisenberg himself may have attempted to paint this picture after the war, and Thomas Powers' book Heisenberg's War and Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen adopted this interpretation. This is because during a June 1942 meeting with Albert Speer, the minister for Nazi munitions, Heisenberg did not champion the project in a way which got it much attention or funding (which Samuel Goudsmit of the Alsos project interpreted as being partially because Heisenberg himself was not fully aware of the feasibility of an atomic bomb). At best, he tried to hinder the German project; at worst, he was just unable to create an atomic bomb.

The debate about Heisenberg's views on the use of atomic weapons is centered on the period from 1939–1942, during which time Germany made a decision not to pursue a nuclear weapons programme. During this period, several events give insight into Heisenberg's role in that decision. At various points evidence during the period suggested that Heisenberg was deliberately steering Germany's research efforts toward developing nuclear energy, rather than nuclear weapons. Some evidence suggests that Heisenberg attempted to communicate these views to the Allies. For example, in April 1941 a German Jewish physicist, Fritz Reiche, arrived in the United States bearing a message from Heisenberg's colleague and friend Fritz Houtermans which was relayed to American officials in the following handwritten note:

"a reliable colleague [Houtermans] who is working at a technical research laboratory asked him [Reiche] to let us know that a large number of German physicists are working intensively on the problem of the uranium bomb under the direction of Heisenberg, that Heisenberg himself tries to delay the work as much as possible, fearing the catastrophic results of a success." (Thomas Powers, Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb.)

Next, there was Heisenberg's visit with an old friend Niels Bohr in occupied Copenhagen in September 1941, the purpose of which has been the subject of great debate. Further, German scientist Hans Peter Jensen visited Niels Bohr in Copenhagen during 1943, of which Bohr wrote that Jensen

"talked [about] efforts to increase the production of heavy water in Norway and hinted in this connection that the German physicists were only considering general technical energy generation."[1]

Finally, in May 1943, the German spy Erwin Respondek passed a report to Sam Woods, an American consular official in Zurich, that

"the Kaiser Wilhelm group [where Heisenberg was chief of theoretical work in Berlin] purposely raised 'difficulties' to slow down work on the project." (Powers, id.)

According to some Heisenberg critics, the German war efforts stalled in 1940 not because of moral qualms, but because Heisenberg had made a gross overestimate of the "critical mass" of fissionable material (Uranium 235) required for a bomb. An estimate of this amount was crucial to the decision about proceeding with a serious nuclear weapons program because of the enormous difficulty and expense of separating the U235 from the U238 that makes up the vast bulk of natural uranium and the length of time it would take to develop a reactor capable of transmuting the uranium into plutonium. According to some critics, Heisenberg had miscalculated the "critical mass" by not taking into account the "drunkard's walk" trajectory of the slow neutrons emitted, thereby overestimating the amount needed as being in the order of tons, not kilograms as was in fact the case.

However, the contention that Heisenberg had wrongly determined in 1940 that a uranium bomb was not technically feasible is at odds with other evidence. First, during the 1941 visit with Bohr, Heisenberg stated that

"in the preceding years [Heisenberg] had devoted [him]self almost exclusively to the question and were quite certain that it could be done," and that he "felt certain that the war, if it lasted sufficiently long, would be decided with atomic weapons."[2]

According to Bohr's later notes,

"Heisenberg said explicitly that he did not wish to enter into technical details but that Bohr should understand that he knew what he was talking about as he had spent 2 years working exclusively on this question."

It is unclear why Heisenberg would report to Bohr in 1941 that his research efforts had led him to conclude that a usable nuclear weapon was feasible if, in fact, a miscalculation in 1940 had led him to conclude that it was not feasible.

Second, after the war, Heisenberg and other German physicists were taken by the British to Farm Hall, where their conversations were monitored. The transcripts, however, are ambiguous and subject to debate. At points, it appeared that Heisenberg had miscalculated the critical mass of uranium required for an atomic bomb—covert eavesdropping revealed that, on hearing of the Allied bombing of Hiroshima, he was at first convinced it was a propaganda trick, so sure was he that the critical mass was impracticably large. Some historians have questioned the reliability of the transcripts, as Heisenberg probably knew he was being monitored.

Indeed, there are indications that Heisenberg had made the correct calculation earlier. In June 1942, Heisenberg answered a question about the size of the fissionable core of a bomb by holding his hands to suggest something the size of a football or pineapple, which would have been roughly right. Indeed, after presenting the "incorrect" calculation to the Farm Hall scientists (including those sympathetic to the Nazi regime), one of Heisenberg's confidants, Otto Hahn, questioned Heisenberg's remark that "tons" of U-235 were needed for a bomb, "But tell me why you used to tell me that one needed 50 kilograms of 235 in order to do anything. Now you say one needs two tons."[3]

Later, Heisenberg told Hahn,

"Quite honestly I have never worked it out as I never believed one could get pure 235. I always knew it could be done with 235 with fast neutrons. That's why 235 only can be used as an explosive. One can never make an explosive with slow neutrons, not even with the heavy water machine [the German nuclear reactor], as then the neutrons only go with thermal speed, with the result that the reaction is so slow that the thing explodes sooner, before the reaction is complete."

Ultimately, upon seeing the reports of the bombing of Hiroshima, Heisenberg told his friend, von Weizsäcker

"I was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making an uranium engine [reactor] but I never thought that we would make a bomb and at the bottom of my heart I was really glad that it was to be an engine and not a bomb. I must admit that."

Whatever the cause, it is clear that on 4 June, 1942, Heisenberg met with German Minister Albert Speer concerning possible uses of Heisenberg's nuclear research, and particularly its potential suitability for the development of nuclear weapons. Notwithstanding Heisenberg's September 1941 report to Bohr that he felt certain nuclear weapons could be constructed and powerful enough to conclude the war if it lasted long enough, during this meeting with Speer he highlighted the technical difficulties and vast time and materials required to separate the uranium needed for the project.

It was this meeting, and Speer's report on it to Hitler, that effectively scuttled any military applications for his work, and limited Heisenberg's work during the remainder of the war to theoretical uses of nuclear energy. As Speer wrote,

"Difficulties were compounded, Heisenberg explained, by the fact that Europe possessed only one cyclotron, and that of minimal capacity. Moreover, it was located in Paris and because of the need for secrecy could not be used to full advantage."

Curiously, albeit perhaps tellingly, Heisenberg did not mention the cyclotron in Copenhagen as a possible source for enriching uranium.

Biography and controversy

In 1956, journalist Robert Jungk published a book titled Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, which painted Heisenberg as having single-handedly and purposely derailed the German project for moral reasons. To justify the claim, in the Danish edition of the book, Jungk printed an excerpt from a personal letter from Heisenberg. The excerpt, however, was taken heavily out of context, and in the full letter Heisenberg was far more demure about whether he had taken a strong moral stance. After reading the excerpt, Bohr was understandably flustered that Heisenberg was (apparently) claiming to have purposely derailed the Nazi bomb project, as it did not match his own perception of Heisenberg's war work at all.

Some historians of science have taken Bohr's draft letters as evidence against Heisenberg's contention that he had met with Bohr to signal that Germany's scientists would not pursue the development of nuclear weapons. Others have argued that Bohr profoundly misunderstood Heisenberg's intentions at the 1941 meeting, and that his reaction to Jungk's work was overly passionate. Significantly, Bohr's draft letters confirm virtually all of Heisenberg's recollection to Jungk of the substance of the meeting. However, as a piece of evidence the letters cannot provide an answer to the question of why Heisenberg broached the topic of nuclear weapons—but not their technical aspects—with Bohr, or whether Bohr formed the correct "impression" of what Heisenberg wanted to say. Heisenberg's motives will most certainly continue to be debated, but it cannot be questioned that he knew Bohr was going to be escaping to the allies when he spoke to him in 1941, and that Heisenberg was risking his life by speaking to anyone about atomic power or atomic weapons.

It is also thought that Italian scientist Gian Carlo Wick approached Heisenberg in January 1944 as an emissary for the OSS as part of Operation Sunrise, to negotiate the capitulation of Nazi scientists to the Allies' Operation Alsos. Allied intelligence through Stockholm continued to sound the alarm about Nazi uranium research right up to war's end, but this was part of Diebner's project, not Heisenberg's.

References

  1. ^ Document 8. Translation
  2. ^ Document 6. Translation
  3. ^ Declassified files reopen "Nazi bomb" debate, The Bulletin Online. (Web archive 2007-08-10)
  • David C. Cassidy, "Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg", (W. H. Freeman) ISBN 0-7167-2503-7
  • James Glanz, "New Twist on Physicist's Role in Nazi Bomb". The New York Times, February 7, 2002.
  • Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-1949 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1990). ISBN 0-521-36413-2 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-521-43804-7 (Paperback)
  • Thomas Powers. Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (Knopf) ISBN 0-394-51411-4 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-316-71623-5 (Paperback)
  • Paul Lawrence Rose. Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945: A Study in German Culture. University of California Press, 1998, ISBN 0-520-21077-8
  • Heisenberg, Werner. Across the frontiers  ; translated from the German by Peter Heath. (Ox Bow Press, 1990) ISBN 0-918024-80-3 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-918024-81-1 (Paperback)
  • -- Encounters with Einstein: and other essays on people, places, and particles. Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (October 1, 1989) ISBN 0-691-02433-2
  • -- Introduction to the unified field theory of elementary particles. 1966
  • -- Natural law and the structure of matter English version by the author. 1970 Warm Wind Books (July 1, 1981) ISBN 0-900615-27-3
  • -- Nuclear physics. 1953
  • -- et al ,On modern physics. English translation by M. Goodman and J.W. Binns. 1961
  • -- Philosophic problems of nuclear science. Translated by F. C. Hayes. 1952; Ox Bow Press (June 1, 1979) ISBN 0-918024-14-5 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-918024-15-3 (Paperback)
  • -- Physical principles of the quantum theory, translated into English by Carl Eckart and Frank C. Hoyt ... 1930
  • -- Physicist's conception of nature. Translated from the German by Arnold J. Pomerans. Greenwood Press Reprint (March 9, 1970) ISBN 0-8371-3107-3
  • -- Physics and beyond; encounters and conversations. Translated from the German by Arnold J. Pomerans. 1971 ISBN 0-04-925020-5
  • -- Physics and philosophy : the revolution in modern science, introduction by F.S.C. Northrop. 1999 ISBN 1-57392-694-9 (Paperback) ISBN 0-06-130549-9 (also Paperback)
  • -- Tradition in science. 1981 Continuum Intl Pub Group (November 1, 1982) ISBN 0-8264-0063-9
  • -- Two lectures. 1949
  • -- et al. Uncertainty principle and foundations of quantum mechanics : a fifty years' survey, edited by William C. Price, Seymour S. Chissick. 1977
  • -- The Part and The Whole about his life, his friendship with Bohr, and the evolution of quantum physics.

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Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates

Jean Perrin (1926) • Arthur Compton / Charles Wilson (1927) • Owen Richardson (1928) • Louis de Broglie (1929) • C. V. Raman (1930) • Werner Heisenberg (1932) • Erwin Schrödinger / Paul Dirac (1933) • James Chadwick (1935) • Victor Hess / Carl Anderson (1936) • Clinton Davisson / George Thomson (1937) • Enrico Fermi (1938) • Ernest Lawrence (1939) • Otto Stern (1943) • Isidor Rabi (1944) • Wolfgang Pauli (1945) • Percy Bridgman (1946) • Edward Appleton (1947) • Patrick Blackett (1948) • Hideki Yukawa (1949) • Cecil Powell (1950)

Complete roster | (1901-1925) | (1926-1950) | (1951-1975) | (1976-2000) | (2001-2025)


Persondata
NAME Heisenberg, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heisenberg, Werner Karl
SHORT DESCRIPTION Physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Würzburg, Germany
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1976, age 74
PLACE OF DEATH Munich, Germany

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