Heisenberg, Wemer

By 1925 the hodgepodge of bizarre results in the last chapter had led to the complete collapse of classical physics. What was now needed was some framework to take its place. Wemer Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger came up with two apparently very different theoretical descriptions within a year, however, it had become clear that both approaches were in fact identical, and they still stand as the foundations of modem quantum mechanics. 

The exact foundation of modem quantum mechanics was laid in 1925-1926, by Wemer Heisenberg, Max Bom and Pascual Jordan, and by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger. The latter s formulation in terms of wave functions has, in particular, proved well suited for the description of atoms, molecules and solids, and their interaction with light. Thus, the Schrodinger equation supplies the basis for our understanding of the chemical bond and for the description of, say, atomic and molecular spectra. 

A Figure 6.15 Wemer Heisenbeis (1901-1976). During his postdoctorai assistantship with Nieis Bohr, Heisenberg formuiated his famous uncertainty principie. At 32 he was one of the youngest scientists to receive a Nobei Prize. 

Wemer Heisenberg did not cany out any formal prool instead he analyzed a Gedankenexperiment (an imaginaiy ideal experiment) with an electron interacting with an electromagnetic wave ( Heisenberg s microscope ). 

Wemer Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976). GOTnan physicist. One of the founders of modern quantum theory. Heisenba-g received the Nobel Prize in Hiysics in 1932. 

Those scientists who contributed to the growth of nuclear physics in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century set the stage for nuclear warfare. Some of the major contributors to the new field of nuclear physics became direct participants in developing or attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Examples include Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Wemer Heisenberg, Otto Hahn, and Andrei Sakharov. 

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