Lecturer: Werner Karl Heisenberg
Biography
Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg was born in 1901 in Wuertschberg, Germany.
He studied physics at the University of Munich and for his doctorate he wrote a thesis on turbulence in fluid streams.
Interested in Nils Bohr’s description of the planetary atom, Heisenberg studied under Max Born at the University of Göttingen and then, in 1924, went to the Universitets Institut for Teoretisk Fysik in Copenhagen, where he studied under Bohr.
In 1925 he published a paper entitled “On the Quantum-Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinetic and Mechanical Relations”, in which he proposed a reinterpretation of the basic concepts of mechanics, followed by the publication of the Uncertainty Principle in 1927.
In the same year he became professor at the University of Leipzig and held this position until 1941, when he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin.
After the war he organised and directed the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Göttingen and later, in 1958, moved to Munich.
As a public figure, he actively promoted the peaceful use of atomic energy and, in 1957, led other German scientists in opposing the move to equip the West German army with nuclear weapons.
In 1970 he became director emeritus of the Max Planck Institute.
Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 and received many other honours. He died in 1976.
Works
His books:
- The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory.
- Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik.
- Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science.
- Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations.
- Quantentheorie und Philosophie: Vorlesungen und Aufsätze.
- Philosophical problems of quantum physics.
- Tradition in Science.
- Physik und Philosophie: Weltperspektiven.
- Encounters with Einstein: And Other Essays on People, Places, and Particles.
- Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Great Minds Series).
- Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik.
- Deutsche und Jüdische Physik.