Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on the 5th of December 1901 in Würzburg, Germany. His father Kaspar Ernst August Heisenberg taught classical languages and became a professor of medieval and modern Greek studies at the university system. The young Werner grew up as a Lutheran Christian in Bavaria. In his late teenage years he read Plato's Timaeus while hiking in the Bavarian Alps. These philosophical conversations with fellow students shaped his scientific training in Munich, Göttingen and Copenhagen.
In 1919 Heisenberg arrived in Munich as a member of the Freikorps to fight the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Five decades later he recalled those days as youthful fun like playing cops and robbers. His duties were restricted to seizing bicycles or typewriters from red administrative buildings. From 1920 to 1923 he studied physics and mathematics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld and Wilhelm Wien. He also studied at the Georg-August University of Göttingen with Max Born and James Franck.
He received his doctorate in 1923 at Munich under Sommerfeld. The topic of his doctoral thesis was turbulence. It discussed both the stability of laminar flow and the nature of turbulent flow. At Göttingen under Born he completed his habilitation in 1924 with a Habilitationsschrift on the anomalous Zeeman effect. In August 1923 Robert Honsell and Heisenberg organized a trip to Finland with a Scout group from Munich.
On the 7th of June 1925 after weeks of failing to alleviate a severe bout of hay fever with aspirin and cocaine Heisenberg retreated to the pollen-free North Sea island of Helgoland. There he wrote his seminal paper Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen. This document is known as the Umdeutung paper and it established modern quantum mechanics. The paper was published in September 1925.
He returned to Göttingen where he worked with Max Born and Pascual Jordan over about six months. They developed the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. On the 9th of July Heisenberg gave Born this paper to review and submit for publication. Born recognized the formulation could be transcribed into the systematic language of matrices. The paper was received for publication just 60 days after Heisenberg's original submission.
In Copenhagen during 1927 Heisenberg developed his uncertainty principle while working on mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. On the 23rd of February 1927 he wrote a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli describing his new principle. In his paper on the principle he used the word Ungenauigkeit meaning imprecision rather than uncertainty. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for the creation of quantum mechanics though the announcement came one year later in November 1933.
After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 Heisenberg was attacked in the press as a White Jew. Supporters of Deutsche Physik launched vicious attacks against leading theoretical physicists including Arnold Sommerfeld and Heisenberg. One attack published in Das Schwarze Korps called him a White Jew who should disappear. Heinrich Himmler settled the affair by sending letters on the 21st of July 1938 to SS Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and to Heisenberg himself.
The German nuclear weapons program known as Uranverein formed on the 1st of September 1939. The project had its first meeting on the 16th of September 1939 held in Berlin. A second scientific conference followed where Reich Minister Rust decided to take the nuclear project away from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. At a scientific conference on 26, the 28th of February 1942 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics Heisenberg presented a lecture to Reich officials on energy acquisition from nuclear fission.
On the 4th of June 1942 Heisenberg reported to Albert Speer that a bomb could not be built before 1945 because it would require significant monetary resources and personnel. During World War II he moved his family to Urfeld am Walchensee as Allied bombing increased in Berlin. In January 1945 he moved with most staff to facilities in the Black Forest. On the 30th of March 1945 the Alsos Mission reached Heidelberg capturing important scientists including Walther Bothe and Richard Kuhn.
On the 3rd of January 1946 ten Operation Epsilon detainees were transported to Alswede in Germany. Heisenberg settled in Göttingen which was in the British zone of Allied-occupied Germany. Following the Kaiser Wilhelm Society's dissolution by the Allied Control Council he became director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics. Max von Laue was appointed vice director while Karl Wirtz Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Ludwig Biermann joined to help establish the institute.
In 1958 the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik was moved to Munich expanded and renamed Max-Planck-Institut für Physik und Astrophysik. Heisenberg was the sole director from 1960 to 1970. He resigned his directorship on the 31st of December 1970. In 1951 he agreed to become scientific representative of the Federal Republic of Germany at a UNESCO conference aiming to establish a European laboratory for nuclear physics.
On the 1st of July 1953 Heisenberg signed the convention that established CERN on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although asked to become CERN's founding scientific director he declined. Instead he was appointed chair of CERN's science policy committee. During his tenure as president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 550 Humboldt scholars from 78 nations received scientific research grants.
Heisenberg admired Eastern philosophy and saw parallels between it and quantum mechanics describing himself in complete agreement with The Tao of Physics. After conversations with Rabindranath Tagore about Indian philosophy some ideas that seemed crazy suddenly made much more sense. Regarding laws of nature he remarked that the concept of the law of nature cannot be completely objective since the word law is a purely human principle.
A devout Christian Heisenberg wrote We can console ourselves that the good Lord God would know the position of subatomic particles thus letting causality continue to have validity. When he accepted the Romano Guardini Prize in 1974 he gave a speech later published under title Scientific and Religious Truth. He referred to nature as God's second book believing physics is reflection on divine ideas of Creation.
In lectures given during the 1950s and later published as Physics and Philosophy he contended that scientific advances were leading to cultural conflicts. He stated modern physics is part of general historical process tending toward unification and widening of our present world. He disliked Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus but liked very much the later ideas of Wittgenstein and his philosophy about language.
Werner Heisenberg's surname serves as primary alias for Walter White played by Bryan Cranston in AMC's crime drama series Breaking Bad throughout White's transformation from high-school chemistry teacher into drug kingpin. In spin-off prequel series Better Call Saul German character Werner Ziegler directs construction of meth lab belonging to antagonist Gus Fring. Heisenberg was target of assassination attempt by spy Moe Berg in film The Catcher Was a Spy based on real events.
Atomic bombs used by Axis in Amazon TV series adaptation of novel The Man in the High Castle are called Heisenberg Devices. Daniel Craig portrayed Heisenberg in 2002 film Copenhagen while Matthias Schweighöfer portrayed him in 2023 biopic Oppenheimer. Karl Heisenberg appears as Resident Evil Village secondary antagonist with magnetic abilities inspired by Heisenberg's research on ferromagnetism.
In television series Star Trek: The Next Generation the Heisenberg compensator is essential component of transporter technology ensuring integrity of transported matter. Compensators counteract effects of applied characteristics identified in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allowing accurate isolation of matter prior to entry into transporter buffer.
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Common questions
When and where was Werner Heisenberg born?
Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on the 5th of December 1901 in Würzburg, Germany. His father Kaspar Ernst August Heisenberg taught classical languages at the university system.
What did Werner Heisenberg write during his stay on Helgoland in 1925?
On the 7th of June 1925 Werner Heisenberg wrote his seminal paper Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen while retreating to the pollen-free North Sea island of Helgoland. This document known as the Umdeutung paper established modern quantum mechanics and was published in September 1925.
Why did Werner Heisenberg receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932?
He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for the creation of quantum mechanics though the announcement came one year later in November 1933. The prize recognized his development of the uncertainty principle which he described using the word Ungenauigkeit meaning imprecision rather than uncertainty.
How did Werner Heisenberg respond to Nazi attacks during World War II?
After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 Heisenberg was attacked in the press as a White Jew by supporters of Deutsche Physik. Heinrich Himmler settled the affair by sending letters on the 21st of July 1938 to SS Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and to Heisenberg himself regarding these vicious attacks.
What role did Werner Heisenberg play in the German nuclear weapons program formed in 1939?
The German nuclear weapons program known as Uranverein formed on the 1st of September 1939 with its first meeting held in Berlin on the 16th of September 1939. On the 4th of June 1942 Heisenberg reported to Albert Speer that a bomb could not be built before 1945 because it would require significant monetary resources and personnel.
Why is the surname Heisenberg used for Walter White in Breaking Bad?
Werner Heisenberg's surname serves as primary alias for Walter White played by Bryan Cranston in AMC's crime drama series Breaking Bad throughout White's transformation from high-school chemistry teacher into drug kingpin. The name references his scientific legacy including the uncertainty principle which allows accurate isolation of matter prior to entry into transporter buffer in Star Trek: The Next Generation.