Werner Heisenberg And The Heisenberg Uncertainty P

Werner Heisenberg And The Heisenberg Uncertainty P Essay, Research Paper Werner Heisenberg and the Heisenberg Uncertainty PrincipleWerner Heisenberg, born in the dawn of the twentieth century became oneof its greatest physicists; he is also among its most controversial. While still in his early twenties, he was among the handful of bright,young men who created quantum mechanics, the basic physics of the atom,and he became a leader of nuclear physics and elementary particleresearch. He is best known for his uncertainty principle, a componentof the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of the meaning, and uses ofquantum mechanics. Through his successful life, he lived through two lost World Wars,Soviet Revolution, military occupation, two republics, political unrest,and Hitler s

Third Reich. He was not a Nazi, and like most scientistsof his day he tried not to become involved in politics. He played aprominent role in German nuclear testing during the World War II era. At age twenty-five he received a full professorship and won the NobelPrize in Physics in 1932 at the age of thirty-two. He climbed quicklyto the top of his field beginning at the University of Munich when hisinterest in theoretical physics was sparked Heisenberg was born the son of August Heisenberg in W rzburg, Germanyon December 5, 1901. August Heisenberg was a professor of Greek at theUniversity of Munich. His grandfather was a middle-class craftsman who shard work paid enough to afford a good education for August Heisenberg. The successfulness of August Heisenberg allowed him to support

hisfamily well. The professorship at the University of Munich put them inthe upper middle-class elite, and was paid three times the salary ofskilled workers. Through his life Werner Heisenberg was pestered with health problems. At the age of five, he nearly died with a lung infection which helpedhim get a little preferential treatment from his parents. During hisearly years, Werner was in constant competition with his brother Erwinwhich caused friction. The Heisenberg family were accomplishedmusicians. Every evening they would sit and practice together. Augustwas on the piano, Erwin played the violin, and Werner played the cello. Their mother insisted that she had no musical talent as an excuse to notbe involved in the male competition. Later Werner also learned thepiano and used

his musical talents as a social vehicle during the courseof his life. This manly competition carried out in many otheractivities in the house. Sometimes August Heisenberg would make gamesout of difficult homework problems that the boys had. Werner once saidwhen reflecting back on his childhood, “Our father used to play allkinds of games with [us] . And since he was a good teacher, he foundthat the games could be used for the educating the children. So when mybrother had some mathematical problems in his schoolwork . he tried touse these problems as a kind of game and find out who could do themquickly, and so on. Somehow, I discovered that I could do that kind ofmathematics rather quickly, so from that time on I had a specialinterest in mathematics.” This constant competition

caused many fightsbetween the brothers. As they grew older the fights became morevicious. One time the fight became particularly bloody where they beateach other with wooden chairs. After this confrontation the brotherscalled a truce and hardly interacted with each other except foroccasional family get togethers when they were adults. In school, Werner began to show his amazing ability early on. Heexcelled through school and always received complementary remarks fromhis teachers. As a result from the competition with his brother hedeveloped a hard work ethic and a strong drive to succeed. Even thoughWerner was not a good runner he would run around the track timinghimself with a stopwatch trying to improve his running times. A teacherof his once said, “The pupil is also