Werner Heisenberg: Quantum Mechanics and Uncertainty Principle

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Werner Heisenberg: Quantum Mechanics and Uncertainty Principle

Werner Karl Heisenberg (born December 5, 1901, Würzburg, Germany—died February 1, 1976, Munich, West Germany), German physicist and philosopher who discovered (1925) a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices.
So, in 1932, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for: 
The creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has led, among other things, to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen.

In 1927, he published, in the paper “Über den anschulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik” (“On the Perceptual Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics”), his uncertainty principle, upon which he built his philosophy and for which he is best known.

This paper articulated the uncertainty, or indeterminacy, principle. Quantum mechanics demonstrated, according to Heisenberg, that the momentum (p) and position (x) of a particle could not both be exactly measured simultaneously.

Heisenberg drew a philosophically profound conclusion: absolute causal determinism was impossible, since it required exact knowledge of both position and momentum as initial conditions. Therefore, the use of probabilistic formulations in atomic theory resulted not from ignorance but from the necessarily indeterministic relationship between the variables. This viewpoint was central to the so-called “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum theory, which got its name from the strong defense for the idea at Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen.

A his quotation:
"Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables."
Physics and Beyond (New York 1971)

He also made important contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles, and he was instrumental in planning the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe, together with a research reactor in Munich, in 1957. 

References and relevant links

► Werner Heisenberg, German physicist and philosopher>>
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Werner-Heisenberg
► Werner Heisenberg (1901 - 1976)>>
https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p01.htm
► Werner Heisenberg - Biographical>>
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-bio.html
► Full MacTutor biography>>
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Heisenberg.html
► The Uncertainty Principe>>
https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08.htm
► Image
In a nutshell: Dresden Codak's cartoon "Lil' Werner">>
https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08z.htm

#history_of_science, #quantum_mechanics , #physics , #werner_heisenberg