Werner Heisenberg

Will Maginnis and Shannon Fox

Early LifeWerner Heisenberg

• Born on December 5, 1901 in Wurzburg, Germany.

• Son of a professor at the University of Munich• Attended the Maximilian School at Munich

until 1920• Studied physics, mathematics, and religion

there.• Very competitive in everything he studied.

Education

• In 1920 Werner began to study theoretical physics under Sommerfeld, along with another student named Pauli.

• Wanted to begin studying research in relativity, but Pauli talked him out of it, stating that the atomic structure needed studying for theory and experiment did not agree.

• In 1923 got his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Munich.

Nuclear Understanding• He was a Nazi scientist that worked on the Nuclear

program for Nazi Germany.• During WW11 he worked on nuclear fission with Otto

Hahn.• He never truly made a working nuclear reactor, the

reason for this is unknown.• Heisenberg wrote a book called The Physical Principles of

Quantum Theory in 1928. Soon other scientist made connections to their work and this book.

• In 1932 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discoveries in 1925 in the ways to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices.

Uncertainty Principle

• “The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known.” – Werner Heisenberg, 1927

• It is impossible to know the speed and place of an electron at the same time.

• Realized that by hitting an electron with gamma rays it would alter the electron’s behavior.

• Many scientists disagreed with this theory, but was eventually made a fundamental law of nature.

Uncertainty Principle

Competitors• Heisenberg and Schrodinger competed for the

best understanding of electron orbits.• Heisenberg developed Matrix Mechanics that

interprets the electron as a particle with quantum behavior.

• Discovered this using matrix computations which have discontinuities and quantum jumps.

Competitors

• Schrodinger develops Wave Mechanics• It interprets the electron as an energy wave

using clearer concepts and equations then Heisenberg’s math.

• Heisenberg believed this theory to be unreliable and false.

• http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/heisenberg.au

Work cited• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259761/Werner

-Heisenberg• http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hei

senberg.html

• http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p01.htm • http://www.thocp.net/biographies/heisenberg_werner.html• http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/heisenberg.au • http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/uncertainty.html