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Werner Heisenberg Birth/Early life
Werner Heisenberg was born in Wurzburg, Germany in 1901 Heisenberg was the son of August, and Annie Wecklein Heisenberg Heisenberg was also an eager student of classical literature and philosophy. when he was 8 he moved to Munich There, soon began his mathematical talent to be apparent. -
The University of Munich
At the university, where he enrolled in the fall of 1920, where he became a student of Arnold Sommerfeld. Here Heisenberg received his doctorate in 1923 with a dissertation on hydrodynamics. Sommerfeld took Heisenberg to Göttingen to attend the Bohr Festival Sommerfeld recognized the talent of his student and had him meet with Niels Bohr first time, which had a lasting effect on him. -
Founding of Quantum Mechanics
In 1925, German physicists Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan formulated a type of quantum mechanics based on matrices. In November of 1925, Heisenberg and his colleagues Born and Jordan published 3 papers known as the “three-man paper,” which was regarded as the foundational document of a new quantum mechanics. -
"three-man paper"
Heisenberg, W. (1926). Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung Kinematischer und Mechanischer Beziehungen. (“Quantum-Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations”).
Born, Max, et al. Zur Quantenmechanik. 1925. (“On Quantum Mechanics”)
Born, Max, et al. Zur Quantenmechanik II. 1925 (“On Quantum Mechanics II”) -
The Uncertainty Principle
Werner Heisenberg is also known for his discovery of the uncertainty principle. Heisenberg discovered his principle while Studying the structure of the hydrogen atom. His analysis showed that uncertainties will always show up if you tried to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. Heisenberg sent a letter to Pauli in February 1927 sharing his discovery. The letter turned into a paper in which Heisenberg presented as the uncertainty principle. -
The Uncertainty Principle Youtube video
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The Nobel Prize in Physics
In 1928, Albert Einstein nominated Heisenberg and his Assistants Born and Jordan for the Nobel Prize in Physics. The Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932. It was at that time that it was announced Heisenberg had won "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen" (The Nobel Prize in Physics 1932) -
Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy
Philosophy played a crucial role in the two revolutions namely, relativity and quantum mechanics. Heisenberg took a philosophical approach to his uncertainty principle he determined that absolute causal determinism was impossible since it required exact knowledge of both position and momentum as initial conditions. In this book, Heisenberg gives a brilliant account of physical reality after reviewing the works of notable philosophers like; Kant, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Aristotle. -
citations
PANGLE, THOMAS L. “ON HEISENBERG’S KEY STATEMENT CONCERNING ONTOLOGY.” The Review of Metaphysics, vol. 67, no. 4, Philosophy Education Society Inc., 2014, pp. 835–59, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24636444. Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 56. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999 Silva, Ignacio. “Werner Heisenberg and Thomas Aquinas on Natural Indeterminism.” New Blackfriars, 2013, 635 – 653. -
Citations
Beyler, R. (n.d.). Werner Heisenberg. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Werner-Heisenberg
Physics and philosophy. The Gifford Lectures. (2014, August 19). Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/physics-and-philosophy
Hilgevoord, J., & Uffink, J. (2016, July 12). The Uncertainty Principle. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 21, 2022,www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty -
DEATH
Werner Heisenberg died of cancer of the kidneys and gall bladder at his Munich home on 1 February 1976, aged 74.