ANNIVERSARY

Werner Heisenberg:
the Columbus of
quantum mechanics
This year marks the centenary of the birth of Werner Heisenberg, pioneer of quantum
mechanics and theoretical high-energy physics. Helmut Rechenberg, Heisenberg's last
postgraduate, co-editor of his collected works and co-author of the multivolume opus The
Historical Development of Quantum Theory, traces the life of a quantum figurehead.
This year, 5 December marks the centenary of Heisenberg's first paper in this field in 1922,
Werner Heisenberg's birth. It is to him that we Sommerfeld remarked to Heisenberg's father:
owe the first breakthrough of modern atomic "You belong to an irreproachable family of
theory-the invention of quantum mechanics. philologists, and now you have the misfortune
His famous uncertainty relations were a of seeing the sudden appearance of a mathe-
central part of its interpretation. He also estab- matical-physical genius in your family." In his
lished several fundamental quantum mechan- PhD thesis, Heisenberg suggested the first
ics applications and pioneered the extension method for deriving the critical Reynolds num-
of the theory to high-energy phenomena. ber, marking the transition from laminar to
Werner Heisenberg, born in Wurzburg, came turbulent motion. In spite of this brilliant work,
from an academic family and after 1910 grew he nearly failed the experimental part of the
up in Munich, where he graduated with doctoral exam with Willy Wien.
distinction from high school in 1920. He stud-
ied under Arnold Sommerfeld at the University The breakthrough
of Munich, obtaining his PhD in July 1923 and In 1923, contemporary atomic theory was in a
then went on to work under Max Born in Fame through uncertainty: quantum deep crisis. As a way out of the situation,
Gottingen. In 1924 Niels Bohr invited him to mechanics pioneer Werner Heisenberg Pauli, who was in Copenhagen, and Born and
Copenhagen. Thus he became a member of in the 1920s. Heisenberg who were in Gottingen, proposed
the great international post-First World War replacing the semiclassical differential expres-
community of quantum and atomic theorists, including such bril- sions of Bohr and Sommerfeld by corresponding discrete difference
liant talents as Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, Friedrich Hund, Pascual terms to predict experimental quantum results (the 1925
Jordan, Oskar Klein, Hendrik Kramers, Wolfgang Pauli and Gregor Kramers-Heisenberg formula, which predicted the Raman effect, for
Wentzel. example). Heisenberg and Pauli claimed that fundamental concepts
In the very first semester Sommerfeld gave Heisenberg the difficult of the old theory, notably electron orbits, had to be abandoned com-
problem of explaining the anomalous Zeeman effect of sodium pletely.
spectral lines. The freshman found a perfect solution - exhibiting, In May 1925, in Gottingen, Heisenberg began to describe atomic
however, unusual half-integral quantum numbers and a strangely systems by observables only ("quantum-theoretical" Fourier series).
behaving atomic core. Simultaneously he studied the classical With this, the usual physical quantities, like position q and
hydrodynamical turbulence problem. On the publication of momentum p of an electron, did not commute but satisfied instead

18 CERN Courier December 2001

 ANNIVERSARY
the relation pq-qp = h/27ti. In several new ideas, such as
June 1925 when Heisenberg "explosive showers", and in
was recovering from a severe 1938, with his student Hans
attack of hay fever on the island Euler, he solved the problem of
of Heligoland, he found that the so-called "hard compo-
he could satisfy the necessary nent" (unstable "mesotrons").
requirement of energy conser- These efforts aimed ultimately
vation in atomic processes. His at an ambitious goal that he
"quantum-theoretical reformu- and Pauli had envisaged: a uni-
lation" was the breakthrough to fied quantum field theory,
modern quantum mechanics. describing all elementary parti-
Soon Born and Jordan reformu- cles and their interactions,
lated it as "matrix mechanics" without any divergences and
and Paul Dirac as "q number allowing all of their properties
theory", and applied it (such as masses and coupling
successfully, as Heisenberg and constants) to be calculated.
Pauli did, to various atomic More than 30 years later they
problems. still had not reached their goal.
It was in 1926 that Erwin However, during their labours,
Schrodinger created wave Heisenberg and Pauli created
mechanics, formally equivalent many concepts of modern high-
to matrix mechanics, but work- energy physics, such as iso-
ing with differential equations Werner Heisenberg (right) at CERN in 1960 with Giuseppe Fidecaro topic spin (Heisenberg, 1932),
and continuous wavefunctions. (left) and Edoardo Amaldi. spin-statistics theory (Pauli and
Schrodinger claimed that Fierz, from 1937 to 1941), and
nature exhibited no "quantum jumps" at all. Heisenberg, from spring the symmetry breaking caused by a degenerate vacuum (Heis-
1926 a lecturer and Bohr's principal assistant in Copenhagen, con- enberg and Pauli 1958). In addition, in 1942 Heisenberg proposed
tradicted this and in early 1927 derived the central result of the the so-called "S-Matrix theory", which was widely discussed after
physical interpretation: simultaneous measurements of momentum the Second World War as a phenomenological approach in quantum
and position of an atomic particle were limited by the famous uncer- electrodynamics and strong-interaction theory. Another noteworthy
tainty relation: Ap.Aq ~ h.This relation had radical consequences - result was the logarithmically rising total cross-section for particle
the classical causality law or, expressed more generally, the possi- collisions at higher energies (Heisenberg 1954).
bility of a strict separation of object and subject, ceased to be valid
in quantum science. Science, politics and international relations
In the fall of 1927, Heisenberg became professor of theoretical During theThird Reich (1933-1945), Heisenberg's life and work was
physics at Leipzig.Together with Peter Debye and Friedrich Hund he made difficult not only by racism directed against his Jewish
established a new centre of atomic physics there. His first students, teachers, colleagues and students, but also by outright attacks on
Felix Bloch and Rudolf Peierls, pioneered with him the quantum him and his scientific work. Nazi partisans considered quantum and
mechanics of solids (ferromagnetism, metals and semiconductors). relativity theories to be "degenerate, Jewish physics", the defenders
of which "had to disappear like the Jews". In spite of these attacks,
High-energy theory and elementary particles and in spite of generous offers to accept prestigious chairs in the US,
Heisenberg's main interest, however, was a relativistic extension of Heisenberg remained in Germany, believing that he did not have the
quantum mechanics: with Pauli he formulated Lagrangian quantum moral right to abandon his students and his country during such
field theory (1929).They tried to cope with the emerging divergence difficult times.
difficulties, achieving some progress with "renormalization" pro- During the Second World War he was drafted into the secret
cedures (Heisenberg 1934; Weisskopf 1934). Originally they were German atomic energy project, working on a nuclear reactor, but not
led to expect that quantum mechanics would not apply any more at on a bomb. In 1942 he moved to Berlin to take over the directorship
high energy. However, after the discovery of the neutron in 1932, of the Kaiser Wilhelm-lnstitut fur Physik (which eventually became
Heisenberg proposed a quantum-mechanical theory of the atomic the Max Planck Institute).
nucleus based on new exchange forces. After the war he successfully helped to renew science in the
During the 1930s, nuclear theory progressed enormously, mainly Federal Republic of Germany and to re-establish international
through work in the US and in Japan (notably by Hideki Yukawa with scientific relations, assisted by many friends in Europe and beyond.
his meson theory) and further at Leipzig (despite the Nazi govern- Thus he became a co-founder and ardent supporter of CERN (and
ment depriving Heisenberg of excellent students and collaborators the first chairman of its scientific policy committee). He considered
after 1933). international co-operation, especially in the most fundamental fields
From 1932 Heisenberg also turned his attention to the high- of science (such as high-energy physics), to be a "main tool to reach
energy phenomena observed in cosmic radiation. He suggested understanding between peoples". As president of the Alexander >

CERN Courier December 2001 19

 ANNIVERSARY
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Heisenberg speaking at the inauguration of CERN's
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Victor Weisskopf; French Secretary of State Marcel Anthonioz;
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and scientific institutes, and high-energy physics received a sub-
stantial share of these fellowships.
Werner Heisenberg died on 1 February 1976 in Munich.To com-
memorate his 80th anniversary, the Max Planck Institute for Physics
The features of the ULTRASTAB® 867-400 incorporates: (which he had transferred in 1958 from Gottingen to Munich) was
given the additional name"Werner-Heisenberg-lnstitut".
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• Temperature coefficient less than 0.3ppm/°C 26-30 September a meeting with the title "100 years of Werner
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Max Planck Institute and Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich,
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• All connections via a 9-pole D-sub socket from abroad; and from 3 December to January 2002 there is a
Heisenberg exhibition at the University of Leipzig and at the Max-
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Helmut Rechenberg, Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich.

" r^DANFYSIK Further reading
DANFYSIKA/S • Mollehaven 31 • DK-4040 Jyllinge • Denmark
Tel.: +45 4678 8150 • Fax: +45 4673 1551 • e-maWsales@danfystk.dk
Webpage: www.danfysik.com
David Cassidy 1992 Uncertainty: the life and science of Werner
USA: GMW Associates Tel.: +1 (650) 802 8292 • Fax: +1 (650) 802 8298 Heisenberg (Freeman).
India: Transact India Corp. • Tel.: +91 (22) 285 5261 • Fax: +91 (22) 285 2326
Japan: Marubun Corp. Tel.: +81 (3) 3639 9652 • Fax: +81 (3) 5644 7627
Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg The Historical Development
of Quantum Theory 5 volumes (Springer).

20 CERN Courier December 2001