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Foundation Of Quantum Mechanics In 1925 after a visit to Bohr’s Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen, Heisenberg tackled the problem of spectrum intensities of the electron taken as an anharmonic oscillator; a one-dimensional
vibrating system. His position that the theory should be based only on observable quantities was central to his paper Quantum Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations". With his new assistant Pascual Jordan, realized that this could be a matrix algebra, which they used in a paper,On Quantum Mechanics. Born,Heisenberg,and Jordan had completed On Quantum Mechanics II,known as the three man paper,which is regarded as the foundational document of a new quantum mechanics -
The Search Begins
In 1927 Heisenberg took up a professorship in Leipzig.He embarked on a research program to create a quantum field theory, uniting quantum mechanics with relativity theory to comprehend the interaction of particles and (force) fields. -
Nobel Peace Prize
Heisenberg also worked on the theory of the atomic nucleus following the discovery of the neutron in 1932, developing a model of proton and neutron interaction in an early description of what decades later came to be known as the strong force. The 1932 Nobel Prize for Physics was not announced until November 1933. Heisenberg was awarded the 1932 physics prize -
Explosion Showers in Cosmic Rays
Heisenberg’s main focus of work in the late 1930s was high-energy cosmic rays, for which he proposed a theory of “explosion showers,” in which multiple particles were produced in a single process, in contrast to the “cascade” theory principally favoured by British and American physicists. Heisenberg also saw in cosmic-ray phenomena possible evidence for his idea of a minimum length marking a lower boundary of the domain of quantum mechanics.
