Soon after the restoration of democratic socialism. Heisenberg supported the invading forces as part of a unit composed of boys from his gymnasium. During the sometimes heavy street fighting and the subsequent restoration of democratic socialist rule. In Bavaria a socialist republic came to power in 1918, then was replaced in 1919 by a Bolshevik-oriented republic that was suppressed by troops dispatched from Berlin. The loss of the war and the abdication of the monarchy caused revolutionary unrest throughout Germany. Weak from lack of food, he helped to bring in the summer of 1918. A severe shortage of fuel and food forced the occasional closing of school and encouraged Heisenberg to educate himself. While his father, a reserve infantry officer, was away from home for nearly the entire war, his sons were left increasingly on their own. Heisenberg, a leading representative of this group, is best known scientifically for his contributions to the creation and development of quantum mechanics.Īs early as his first semester at Munich, Heisenberg displayed the audacity, optimism, and independence of thought and action that characterized his physics as well as his personal life during and immediately following World War I. He also made the acquaintance of such young and brilliant theoretical physicists as Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, and Paul Dirac, who would dominate atomic physics for at least a decade. The discovery of the Compton effect at the end of 1922 lent support to the light-quantum hypothesis, contradicting the well-established wave theory of light and raising the wave-particle dualism to a fundamental problem.ĭuring his studies and research at Munich, and subsequently at Göttingen with Max Born and at Copenhagen with Niels Bohr, Heisenberg became familiar with each of the above difficulties, as well as with the limitations of quantum theory and of the methods employed by each of his mentors. During the early 1920’s the mechanical properties of quantized models of atoms and molecules consisting of more than two particles disagreed with observed properties, and atomic spectra and their behavior in applied electric and magnetic fields displayed numerous inexplicable regularities and anomalies. Transitions between quantum states involved the emission or absorption of monochromatic radiation of frequency proportional to the change of energy. This theory, formulated by Niels Bohr in 1913, regarded atomic motions as governed by integral quanta of energy and momenta. Sommerfeld’s institute was one of the few, mainly in Germany, where theoretical atomic physics was pursued, and the only German institute concerned with the entire quantum theory of atomic spectroscopy.īy 1920, atomic structure, the properties of light, and spectroscopy had become focuses of research on quantum atomic theory. When Heisenberg entered the University of Munich, theoretical physics, although it had attained recognition through the efforts of the older generation, was overshadowed by the work of experimentalists like Wien. Heisenberg’s dissertation involved an approximate solution of the complicated equations governing the onset of hydrodynamic turbulence. the professor of experimental physics, who found the candidate deficient in his field. Heisenberg received his doctorate under Sommerfeld in 1923-over the objections of Wilhelm Wien. Following the refusal of mathematics professor Ferdinand von Lindemann to admit Heisenberg to his seminar for advanced students, Heisenberg’s father arranged an interview with the professor of theoretical physics, Arnold Sommerfeld, who tentatively accepted the ambitious student into his advanced seminar. Heisenberg entered the University of Munich in 1920, intending to study pure mathematics. and had attempted to publish a paper on number theory. By the time of his final examinations (Abitur), he had taught himself calculus, had explored the properties of elliptic functions. There he displayed an outstanding talent for mathematics. In 1911, Heisenberg entered the MaximiliansGymnasium, of which his maternal grandfather was rector. On 29 April 1937 Heisenberg married Eli-sabeth Schumacher, daughter of the noted Berlin professor of economics Hermann Schumacher. He remained an excellent and avid player throughout his life. He began piano lessons early, and by the age of thirteen he was playing master compositions. Heisenberg attended primary school in Würzburg and Munich. In 1910 he moved his family to Munich, where he had been appointed professor of Greek philology at the university. His father taught ancient languages at the Altes Gymnasium in Würzburg and Greek philology at the university. Heisenberg was the younger son of August and Anna Wecklein Heisenberg. Munich, Federal Republic of Germany, 1 February 1976)
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