Werner Heisenberg: biography and contributions of this German theoretical physicist.

A summary of the life and scientific career of Werner Heisenberg.

Werner Heisenberg is one of the most important figures of 20th century physics. His Uncertainty Principle together with his findings in quantum and nuclear theory have shaped this science throughout the last century and the present.

Born at the beginning of the 20th century, his life was marked by a remarkable boom thanks to his theoretical assumptions but also to the misfortune of having lived in a Germany that would soon be taken over by the Nazis who would have dark plans for his experiments.

Heisenberg's life could have been that of someone who would have built one of the deadliest weapons in history but, fortunately, this scientist had morals that prevented him from materializing it. Let's take a look at his story through this biography of Werner Heisenberg..

Werner Heisenberg short biography.

Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on December 5, 1901 in Würzburg, Germany.. Son of Annie and August Heisenberg, a professor of humanities specializing in the history of Byzantium.

From a young age, Heisenberg was inclined towards mathematics, and to a lesser extent towards physics.

Academic career

In 1920 he tries to start a doctorate in pure mathematics with Ferdinand von Lindemann as his tutor, but he rejects him as a student because the professor is close to retirement. Lindemann himself recommends him to do his doctoral studies with the physicist Arnold Sommerfeld as supervisor, who accepts him willingly.

While doing his doctoral thesis, Heisenberg has Wolfgang Pauli as a colleague, with whom he would collaborate closely in the development of quantum mechanics..

During his first year he takes mainly mathematics courses with the intention of working on number theory as soon as he has the opportunity but, as time goes by, he becomes interested in theoretical physics. Werner Heisenberg tries to work on Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity and his colleague Pauli advises him to pursue Atomic Theory where there were still many discrepancies between theory and experimental evidence.

During his studies at the University of Munich, he decided in favor of physics, without renouncing his interest in pure mathematics.. At that time physics was essentially an experimental science. Arnold Sommerfeld recognized his extraordinary abilities for mathematical physics, but also showed some opposition to Heisenberg's doctoral graduation because of his great lack of skill and inexperience in experimental physics. In the end, however, Werner Heisenberg received his doctorate in 1923, presenting a paper on fluid turbulence.

From Munich, Heisenberg went to the University of Göttingen, where Max Born was teaching, and in 1924, he moved to the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, headed by Nielsen Nielsen, in 1924, he moved to the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen headed by Niels Bohr.. There Heisenberg would meet other important physicists such as Albert Einstein, and thus begin his most productive period, resulting in the creation of matrix mechanics. This achievement would be recognized by winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932.

In 1927 he held the position of professor at the University of Leipzig, teaching theoretical physics.

Matrix mechanics and uncertainty principle.

In the year 1925 Werner Heisenberg develops matrix quantum mechanics. This theory stands out for its great pragmatism because, instead of concentrating on the evolution of physical systems from beginning to end, it concentrates its efforts on obtaining information by knowing the initial and final state of the system, without worrying about knowing precisely what happened in the medium.

Heisenberg puts forward the idea of grouping information in the form of double-entry tables.Heisenberg's idea of grouping information in the form of double-entry tables, something that Max Born called his attention to, since it had already been studied by mathematicians, which was not different from the theory of matrices. Likewise, one of the most striking results is that matrix multiplication was not commutative, so the associations of physical quantities with matrices would have to reflect that mathematical fact. As a consequence of this, Heisenberg enunciates the Principle of Indeterminacy.

The so-called uncertainty or indeterminacy principle, also called the Heisenberg Principle, states that it is not possible to know, with arbitrary precision and when the mass is constant, the position and momentum of a particle. It follows that the product of the uncertainties of both quantities must always be greater than that of Planck's constant.

The statement of the Uncertainty Principle caused a great stir among the physicists of the time, since it implied the definitive disappearance of the uncertainties of both magnitudes.This principle implies the practical impossibility of carrying out perfect measurements, since the mere presence of the observer disturbs the values of the other particles under consideration and influences the measurement being carried out.

Werner Heisenberg also predicted, thanks to the principles of quantum mechanics, the dual spectrum of the hydrogen atom and managed to explain, also, that of the helium atom. His work on nuclear theory also allowed him to predict that the hydrogen molecule could exist in two states, one as orthohydrogen, the other as helium.one as orthohydrogen, in which the nuclei of its two atoms rotate in the same direction, and another as parahydrogen, in which its nuclei rotate in opposite directions.

World War II

In 1935 he tried to replace Sommerfeld when he retired as a professor in Munich. However, with the rise of the Nazis, Heisenberg's wishes were dashed.

The Nazi Party wanted to eliminate all "Judaizing" physical theory.The curious category included quantum mechanics and relativity, both theories taught by Heisenberg in his classes and whose referents were the Jews Max Born and Albert Einsen. As a consequence, the Nazis prevented Heisenberg's appointment.

However, his fate would change when, in 1938, the Nazis "kindly" invited him to lead their attempt to manufacture an atomic weapon. Thus, between 1942 and 1945, Werner Heisenberg managed to head the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin. During World War II he worked with Otto Hahn, one of the discoverers of nuclear fission, collaborating in the manufacture of a nuclear reactor.

For many years there was doubt as to whether this project failed because its members simply did not succeed or because Heisenberg and his collaborators deliberately sabotaged it, suspecting what Adolf Hitler could have done with an atomic bomb.

In September 1941 Heisenberg went to Denmark to visit Niels Bohr. In an act that according to the Nazis could only have been classified as treason and seriously endangered him, Heisenberg talked to Bohr about the German atomic bomb project and even made him a drawing of a reactor..

Heisenberg knew that Bohr had contacts outside unoccupied Europe and proposed a joint effort to get both Axis and Allied scientists to delay nuclear research until the war was over. In June 1942, another German scientist, J. Hans D. Jensen, informed Bohr that German scientists were not working on a nuclear bomb, but only on a reactor.

Heisenberg and other German scientists always claimed that, for moral reasons, they did not attempt to build the Nazi atomic bomb.and that the circumstances were not right for them to do so. These statements were denounced by scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project, claiming that Heisenberg had not actually made the German atomic bomb because he had made a mistake in his calculations of the necessary amount of Uranium-235 and the critical mass to sustain the reaction.

Heisenberg before the new nuclear technology

At the end of the war in Europe and as part of Operation Epsilon, Heisenberg along with other scientists, including Otto Hahn, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Max von Laue, was arrested and interned in a cottage called Farm Hall in England. This prison house had hidden microphones that recorded all the prisoners' conversations.

While in that house, on August 6, at six o'clock in the evening, he was arrested and interned in a house called Farm Hall in England, Heisenberg and his fellow inmates listened to a BBC report on the Hiroshima atomic bombing.. The next night, Werner Heisenberg gave a talk to his fellow inmates, in the form of a report, which included a roughly correct estimate of the critical mass and Uranium-235 needed, as well as the design features of the bomb.

This speech is considered to be proof that Heisenberg really could have made these calculations when he was working for Nazi Germany, but did not want to, which lends strength to the argument that he did not actually build the bomb because of moral objections.

Perhaps his sentence that best sums up his position on the final use to which the atomic theory ended up being put is the following:

"Ideas are not responsible for what men make of them."

Last years

After the final end of the war, Heisenberg was eventually released and allowed to continue working in physics in his native Germany. In 1946 he was given the position of director of the Max Planck Institute, and later organized and directed the Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Göttingen, which was moved to Munich in 1958.which was moved in 1958 to Munich.

There Heisenberg concentrated on research on the theory of elementary particles, the structure of the atomic nucleus, turbulent hydrodynamics, cosmic rays and ferromagnetism.

In 1970 he was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize for Academic Prose. He died a few years later, on February 1, 1976 in Munich, at the age of 74.