Werner Heisenberg: biography and contributions of this German theoretical physicist

Werner Heisenberg is one of the most important figures in 20th century physics. His Uncertainty Principle along with his findings in nuclear and quantum theory have shaped this science throughout the past century and 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 misfortune to have lived in a Germany that would soon be taken over by the Nazis who would have dark plans for their experiments.

Heisenberg's life could have been that of someone who had built one of the most deadly in history but, fortunately, this scientist had a moral that prevented him materialize it. Let's see the story of him through this biography of Werner Heisenberg.

• Related article: "The 10 branches of Physics and their fields of knowledge"

Brief biography of Werner Heisenberg

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 trajectory

In 1920 he tries to start the doctorate in pure mathematics with Ferdinand von Lindemann as tutor, but he rejects him as a student because the professor is about to retire. Lindemann himself recommends that you do your doctoral studies with physicist Arnold Sommerfeld as a supervisor, who welcomes you.

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

During his first year he mainly takes mathematics courses with the intention of working on the theory of he numbers he hardly had a chance but, as time went by, he began to take an interest in theoretical physics. Werner Heisenberg tries to work on Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity and his partner Pauli advises him to dedicate himself to Atomic Theory in which there were still quite a few discrepancies between theory and evidence experimental.

During his studies at the University of Munich, he opted for 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 he also showed a certain opposition to Heisenberg's doctoral graduation due to his great lack of skill and inexperience in physics experimental. However, Werner Heisenberg eventually finished his doctorate in 1923, presenting a work on fluid turbulence.

From Munich, Heisenberg went on to the University of Göttingen, where Max Born taught and, In 1924, he went to the Copenhagen Institute for Theoretical Physics led by Niels Bohr. There Heisenberg would meet other important physicists such as Albert Einstein, thus initiating 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 served as professor at the University of Leipzig, teaching theoretical physics.

• You may be interested in: "The 5 ages of History (and their characteristics)"

Matrix Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle

In 1925 Werner Heisenberg developed 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 to obtain information knowing the initial and final state of the system, without worrying about knowing precisely what happened in the half.

Heisenberg raises the idea of ​​grouping information in the form of double entry tables, something to which Max Born caught his attention, since it had already been studied by mathematicians, which was not different from matrix theory. Similarly, 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 moment of a particle. From this it follows that the product of the uncertainties of both magnitudes must always be greater than that of Planck's constant.

The statement of the Uncertainty Principle caused much stir among physicists of the time, since it supposed the definitive disappearance of classical certainty in physics and the introduction of an indeterminism that affected the foundations of matter and the material universe. This principle supposes the practical impossibility of carrying out perfect measurements since, the simple presence of the observer disturbs the values ​​of the other particles that are considered and influences the measurement that is taking cape.

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 nuclear theory works also enabled him to predict that the hydrogen molecule could exist in two states, one as orthohydrogen, in which the nuclei of its two atoms rotate in the same direction, and another as parahydrogen, in which their nuclei rotate in opposite directions.

• Related article: "The 4 main types of science (and their fields of research)"

Second World War

In 1935 he tried to replace Sommerfeld by retiring as a teacher in Munich. However, with the rise of the Nazis, Heisenberg's wishes are truncated.

The Nazi Party wanted to eliminate all "Judaizing" physical theory, and in that curious category fell 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 prevent 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. For this reason, between 1942 and 1945, Werner Heisenberg managed to direct 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 explicitly sabotaged it by suspecting what Adolf Hitler might have done with a bomb. atomic.

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 that seriously endangered him, Heisenberg talked to Bohr about the German atomic bomb project and even drew him a drawing of a reactor.

Heisenberg knew that Bohr had contacts outside of non-occupied Europe and proposed a joint effort to that scientists from both the Axis and allies delayed nuclear research until the war was over. In June 1942, another German scientist, J. Hans D. Jensen told 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., in addition to the fact that the circumstances were not given to do so. These statements were denounced by scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project, stating that Heisenberg had not really manufactured the German atomic bomb by erring in its calculations of the necessary quantity of Uranium-235 and of the critical mass to sustain the reaction.

• You may be interested in: "Psychology of conflict: theories that explain wars and violence"

Heisenberg in the face of 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 placed in a country house called Farm Hall in England. This house-prison had hidden microphones that recorded all the conversations of the prisoners.

Being in that house, on August 6, at six in the afternoon, Heisenberg and his fellow inmates heard a BBC report on the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The following night, Werner Heisenberg gave a talk to his colleagues, by way of a report, which included an estimate approximately correct critical mass and Uranium-235 required, in addition to 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 he refused, which gives force to the argument that he did not really build the bomb because of objections morals.

Perhaps his phrase that best sums up his position on the final use that atomic theory ended up being the following:

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

• Related article: "Marie Curie: biography of this pioneering researcher of radioactivity"

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 appointed as director of the Max Planck Institute, and later on he organized and directed the Göttingen Institute of Physics and Astrophysics., which he was transferred in 1958 to Munich.

In that city Heisenberg concentrated on research on the theory of elementary particles, the structure of the atomic nucleus, the hydrodynamics of turbulence, cosmic rays and the ferromagnetism.

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