Heisenberg 12983 portrait

Werner Heisenberg

  • Born in Wurzburg, Germany

  • Period: to

    Werner Karl Heisenberg

  • Theory of Quantum Mechanics published

    Discovered a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices.
  • Published Uncertainty Principle

    This principle was one of Heisenberg's most famous works. It states that you can never simultaneously know the exact position and the exact speed of an object. Everything in the universe behaves both like a particle and a wave at the same time. We can calculate the location of a particle and also the momentum of a wave but in order to put them together we can only find the estimate of the possible area in which the two will meet.
  • Nobel Prize for Physics

    Awarded for his discovery of the quantum mechanics theory.
  • Taken prisoner in WWII

    Heisenberg, along with other German physicists, were taken to England by American troops during the Second World War for protection and to continue their work.
  • Helped work on the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe

  • Died in Munich, (West) Germany