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Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the
founders of quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics
As a student, he met Niels Bohr in Göttingen in 1922. A fruitful collaboration developed between the two.
He invented matrix mechanics, the first formalization of
quantum mechanics in 1925.
His uncertainty principle, discovered in 1927, states that the determination of both the position and momentum of a particle necessarily
contains errors, the product of these being not less than a known constant. Together with Bohr, he would go on to formulate 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".
During the early days of the Nazi regime in Germany, Heisenberg was harassed as a "White
Jew" for teaching the theories of Albert Einstein in contrast with
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, working under the Nazi regime. He led Germany's nuclear weapon/nuclear power program, but the
extent of his cooperation in the development of weapons has been a subject of historical controversy.
He revealed the program's existence to Bohr at a conference in Copenhagen in September 1941. After the meeting, the lifelong
friendship between Bohr and Heisenberg ended abruptly. Bohr later joined the Manhattan Project. Germany did not succeed in producing an atomic bomb.
It has been speculated that Heisenberg had moral qualms and tried to slow down the project. Heisenberg himself attempted to
paint this picture after the war, and Thomas Power's book "Heisenberg's War" and Michael Frayn's play "Copenhagen" adopted this interpretation.
In February 2002, a letter written by Bohr to Heisenberg in 1957 (but never sent) emerged. In it, Bohr relates that
Heisenberg, in their 1941 conversation, did not express any moral problems with the bomb making project, that Heisenberg had
spent the past two years working almost exclusively on it, and that he was convinced that the atomic bomb would eventually decide
the war. The context of this letter, however, was the publication of the journalist Robert Jungk's Brighter than a thousand
suns, which painted Heisenberg as having single-handedly purposely derailing the German project. Jungk printed an excerpt
from a personal letter from Heisenberg -- taken out of context -- to justify the claim (in the full letter, Heisenberg was more
demure about whether he had taken a strong moral stance). Bohr was understandably flustered by this apparent claim as it did not
match with his own perception of Heisenberg's war work at all.
Some historians of science take this as evidence that the previous interpretation of Heisenberg's resistance was wrong, but
others have argued that Bohr profoundly misunderstood Heisenberg's intentions at the 1941 meeting, or an overly passionate
reaction to Jungk's work. As a piece of evidence, it has had little effect on overall historical conclusions.
Looking back
He wrote a book called "The Part and The Whole"
about his life, his friendship with Bohr, and the evolution of quantum physics.
"He lies somewhere here" has been his epitaph.
According to an apocryphal story, Heisenberg was asked what he would ask God, given the opportunity. His reply was: "When I
meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he
will have an answer for the first."
References
- 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).
See also
External links
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