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Top 10 Unbelievable Facts about Werner Heisenberg

He was born on December 5, 1901, in  Würzburg, Germany. His parents were Kaspar Ernst August Heisenberg and Annie Weklein. His father was the only German ordinarius professor of medieval and modern Greek in the university system who started his teaching career as a secondary school teacher. Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist. He was raised as a Luthern Christian. Heisenberg met his wife Elisabeth Schumacher during a private recital and married her in 1914. Elisabeth was the daughter of a well-known Berlin economist. They have fraternal twins Maria and Wolfgang. He was among the first pioneers of quantum mechanics theory. His first publication was in 1925. He co-authored other publications with Max Born and Pascual Jordan in the same year whereby his quantum mechanic theory was further explained. Other areas of his contribution include the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subsequently the subatomic particles. In addition, he became the principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program during World War II. His contribution to the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe and further the research reactor in Munich in 19 57 are some of his outstanding discoveries that are recorded hi the history of physicists. He is known for his principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy principle. The principle indicates that it is impossible to determine with arbitrarily high accuracy both the position and momentum of  a subatomic particle like the electron. He later became the President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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1. At the beginning of his career

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In his late teenage years, Heisenberg read a lot about Plato’s Timaeus. Most of his time was hiking in the Bavarian Alps. It is during this time that he she’d meditated on Plato’s philosophy. In addition, he kept remembering his discussions with his teachers and fellow students about the atom during his scientific training at Göttingen, Copenhagen, and Munich. Physics started making sense to him. One thing that was very clear in his mind was that the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense but are forms of ideas that can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language. This is where it all began!

2. Member of the Freikorps

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He became a member of Freikorps in Munich which was established to fight the Bavarian Soviet Republic. His duties included seizing bicycles or typewriters from red administrative buildings and guarding suspected red prisoners, a role that he enjoyed as a youth.

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3. Member of the Scouts Association

During his youth, he was a Scout leader and the same time member of the Neupfadinder, a German Scout Association. In addition, he was also part of the German Youth Movement. His leadership as a leader of Scouts marveled the whole team when he and his colleague Robert Honsell organized a trip to Finland.

4. His Turning Point in His Career

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He met Borh as his guest lecturer during the Bohr Festivals at Göttingen which he had attended with Arnold Sommerfeld, his lecturer at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Arnold knew the interest Heisenberg has in Niels Bohr’s theories on atomic physics, hence, the need to take him to the festival. It was here that he met Bohr for the very first time and this has an impact on building his thesis project. Bohr suggested a topic to him on the nature of turbulent flow and the stability of the laminar flow. There work relationship continued to a point that he became Bohr’s assistant lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.

5. His Private Life

He enjoyed classical music. He was also an accomplished pianist. It was his interest in music that he met his wife Elisabeth Schumacher. They met during a private music recital. Elisabeth was the daughter of a well-known Berlin economist, her brother was economist E.F. Schumacher who authored “Small is Beautiful.” They got married on April 29, 1914, and were blessed with fraternal twins Maria and Wolfgang, Barbara, Christine, Jochen, Martin, and Verena. 

6. He Lectured At various University

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Heisenberg was appointed assistant to Bohr in Cpenhagen Univestiy in 1926. He used Wolfgang Pauli’s principle in his paper where he used the word Ungenauigkeit (imprecision). In 1927, he was appointed Professor of theoretical physics. He also became the head of department of physics at Universtiy of Leipzip. In February 1st, 1928,he gave his inaugural speech at Pauli exclusion principle to solve the mystery of ferromagnetic. It was during his lectures at Leipzig that his high quality teaching impacted the doctoral and post-graduate students in research. 

7. People he Impacted with His Principles

His teaching at various universities developed many physicists like Erich Bagge, Felix Bloch, Ugo Fano, Siegfried Flügge, William Vermillion Houston, Friedrich Hund, Robert S. Mulliken, Rudolf Peierls, George Placzek, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Fritz Sauter, John C. Slater, Edward Teller, John Hasbrouck van Vleck, Victor Frederick Weisskopf, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Gregor Wentzel, and Clarence Zener.

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8. His Simple Harmonic Oscillator

He took advantage of the Bohr Sommerfeld model that was not able to explain the outstanding problem of the anomalous Zeeman effect which led him to use the oscillator model in calculating spectral frequencies. Therefore, the simple harmonic oscillator, a changed particle on a spring feeling anxiety  by an external force series in the frequency of the oscillator. This works were best known for when he interpreted the principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy principle. This principle states that it is impossible to determine with arbitrarily high accuracy both the position and momentum of  a subatomic particle like the electron.

9. He was nominated for Nobel Prize Alongside others

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Albert Einstein nominated Heisenberg, Born and Jordon for the Nobel Prize in Physics. This was announced in 1932 where Albert stated that the Nobel Prize was for the creation of quantum mechanics. The application lead to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen.

10. He Wrote His own Memoirs

His memoirs was as a chain of conversations which covered his life journey. In the preface Heisebberg noted that he had abridged historical events. He worked on his autobiography and published it in Munich. It was translated to English in 1971 under the title Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversation.

He died of kidney cancer on February 1, 1976 at his home. In his memory, his colleagues from the Institute for Physics at Göttingen walked from the Institute of Physics to his him. They lit a candle and placed it in from of his door. He was buried in Munich Waldfriedhof. His wife had stated that he was the first and foremost a spontaneous perso, brillent scientist and talented artist.

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