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Early Beginning
Heisenberg entered the Maximilian school at Munich until 1920.
During the winter semester of 1922 he went to Göttingen to study physics under Max Born, Franck, and Hilbert. In 1923 he took his Ph.D. at the University of Munich and then became Assistant to Max Born at the University of Göttingen. -
Raising the Bar
In 1924 he gained the venia legendi which serves as evidence of an individual's capability of researching independently and of teaching in a certain subject area at the same University. -
Growing fast in the field
In 1926 he was appointed as Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen under Niels Bohr. -
Atomic Professor
In 1927, when he was only 26, he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig. -
World Tour
In 1929 he went on a lecture tour to the United States, Japan, and India. Expanding on his theories as well as his ideas on Quantum physics etc. -
The prize goes...
Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1932. His new theories were based only on what can be observed, that is to say, on the radiation emitted by the atom. Mechanical quantities, such as position, velocity, etc. should be represented, not by ordinary numbers, but by abstract mathematical structures called “matrices” and he formulated his new theory in terms of matrix equations. -
Head Professor of Physics
In 1941 he was assigned as the head Professor of Physics at the University of Berlin and Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics . -
A-Bomb Work List
He was part of a team at Farm Hall as part of the Manhattan Project's Alsos Mission to determine German scientists' knowledge regarding the development of an atomic bomb. -
From POW to School Founder
Close to the end of the Second World War Heisenberg and other well known German physicists, were taken prisoner by American troops and sent to England, but in 1946 returned to his home.
When he returned he was able to reshape and reorganized his ideas in order to create the newly founded Institute for Physics at Göttingen. ,In 1948, this Institute was renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics. -
Legacy Continued
In 1953 he became the President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he spent lots of time furthering his theories and policy while expanding his Foundation. He would invite other scientists from other countries to Germanyto help them to work on their newly found theoretical ideas. His theoretical work evolved and was concentrated on the unified field theory of elementary particles which he pointed seems to be the key to an understanding of the physics of elementary particles.