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Werner Heisenberg. Will Maginnis and Shannon Fox. Early Life Werner 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.
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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.
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/Heisenberg.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