Werner Heisenberg Essay, Research Paper
Werner Heisenberg
One cannot fully appreciate the work of Werner Heisenberg unless one examines his contributions in the context of the time in which he lived. Werner Karl Heisenberg was born in Wuerzburg, Germany, on December 5, 1901, and grew up in academic surroundings, in a household devoted to the humanities. His father was a professor at the University of Munich and undoubtedly greatly influenced young Werner, who was a student at the Maximilian Gymnasium.
Heisenberg had the opportunity to work with many of the top physicists in the world including Niels Bohr and Max Born. Like many of the top physicists of the time Heisenberg received his doctorate at an early age. In Heisenberg’s case he received it at the young age of twenty three. Heisenberg was not just a researcher. He was also a professor and author. During his career he taught at many prestigious universities, including the Universities of Leipzig, Goettingen, and Berlin. He also wrote many important books including, Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory, Cosmic Radiation, Physics and Philosophy, and Introduction to the Unified Theory of Elementary Particles. In 1932 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in Quantum Mechanics.
With the Nazi’s in power, and World War two on the horizon it was inevitable that his German heritage would play a crucial role in his career. Before Germany’s blitzkrieg on Poland Heisenberg decided to make one final visit of his friends in the West. Many tried to convince him to stay and accept a professorship at Columbia, but Heisenberg declined. He felt that it was his duty to preserve the foundation of science in Germany during the war. He also believed that by staying in Germany during the war, he could help individual German scientists. In fact, he did offer jobs to Jewish scientists when they were fired from their posts at other universities. As time passed, Heisenberg found that he was powerless to protect his friends. Heisenberg himself was personally attacked, and his appointment at the University of Munich was blocked. For over a year Heisenberg was attacked in the SS newspaper, which referred to him as a “white Jew.” The attack became so threatening that Heisenberg’s mother, who had a slight connection to Himmler’s family, wrote to Himmler’s mother asking Himmler to intercede. Himmler personally cleared Heisenberg of the charges leveled against him a year later, but he was told to study science and avoid discussing scientists. The strain of the investigation surely affected Heisenberg’s creativity.
During the war Heisenberg worked on the German A-bomb project along with a number of other German scientists. It has been proposed in the novel Heisenberg’s War, written by Thomas Powers, that Heisenberg deliberately sabotaged this project to keep the bomb out of Hitler’s hands. After the war was over, all of the scientists in Germany working on the A-bomb project, including Heisenberg, were interned in England to be questioned about their work on the project.
Heisenbergs nationalism eventually ruined many of his academic friendships. His close relationship with Neils Bohr was destroyed by his decision to remain in Germany during the war. His failure to be more specific about his stand in whether or not to seriously work to develop a German bomb played an important part in his inability to reestablish ties with friends who moved to the West. The creative interaction with many leading scientists prior to the war was not resumed at the war’s end.
Heisenberg’s most important finding, the Uncertainty Principle is the corner stone of Quantum Mechanics. However, many advances in Quantum Mechanics had to be made before Heisenberg found it. Everything started with Rutherford’s model of the atom. Consisting of a positively charged central nucleus, surrounded by orbiting planetary electrons. Around the same time that Rutherford was discovering the basic structure of the atom, Plank did some important work also. Finding that energy from an oscillating particle is emitted not continuously, but in packets of energy he developed the Quantum Theory of Radiation. From this came the universal constant h which played a large role in Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. Neils Bohr then made a new model of the atom, which combined both Rutherford’s and Plank’s work. This new model accounted for known patterns of atomic radiation as seen in spectra. However, what Bohr wrote on paper about the electron activity and what other physicists were observing were two different things. Bohr had developed his quantum theory of the atom by discarding the idea of a classical frequency associated with the orbit of an electron, but he still retained the concept of the classical orbit. Heisenberg went one step further and discarded the concept of the orbit itself. Rather than the classical idea of the position and the motion, or momentum, of the electron at each instant in time, Heisenberg introduced his square arrays or matrices, which depict the electron as existing simultaneously in all possible Bohr orbits. After Heisenberg’s discovery, the classical concept of the electron as a particle was no longer justifiable.
Heisenberg was led to these revolutionary ideas by his insistence on utilizing only those quantities in a theory that are directly observable. Since the orbit of an electron is not observable, it can have no place in a theory. Only the spectral lines are observed, and, since these involve pairs of orbits, all quantities that are used to describe the electron inside the atom should be associated with such pairs.
Such thinking led to Heisenberg’s matrices. One of the important features of matrices is that it is not commutative. If the array representing the position of an electron is q and an array representing its momentum is p, then the product pq is not the same as the product qp.
This showed Heisenberg that the uncertainty relationship is purely an algebraic consequence of his matrix theory. If you picture the product pq as representing a measurement of the position of the electron followed by a measurement of its momentum; qp, on the other hand, represents the measurement of the momentum of a particle followed by at the measurement of its position. That these two sets of measurements give different results simply means that the measurement of the momentum of a particle destroys our knowledge of its position, and vice versa. It follows that it is impossible to obtain or to have precise knowledge of the position and the momentum of a particle simultaneously; this is the essence of the uncertainty principle.
Its significance for the structure of the atom is that we have no way of determining the orbit of an electron inside the atom observationally. As Heisenberg pointed out in his analysis of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, an electron can be observed inside an atom only with a gamma-ray microscope which, because of the short wavelength of gamma rays, has a high resolving power. This microscope shows us where the electron is at any moment, but at least one gamma-ray photon must be reflected from the electron. In this very process the electron is knocked out of the atom. It is senseless then to speak of its orbit.
Although the uncertainty relations can be derived mathematically from theory, it is much more instructive to derive them from the physical picture. This method shows clearly the interrelationship between the wave and the particle. In fact, it is clear from Heisenberg’s analysis that wave and particle are complementary aspects, as are position and momentum. It was from considerations such as these that Bohr developed his theory of complementarily, which is essential for an understanding of modern atomic theories.
The uncertainty relations completely change our ideas of causality. If we cannot determine the position and the momentum of a particle simultaneously to any desired degree of accuracy, we cannot determine its future course. We can solve equations for the motion of the particle. However, these solutions can tell us its future history only if at some moment in the past or at the present instant we know its position and momentum. The farther we try to look into the future, the less accurate our predictions become because our present uncertainty, however small leads to greater deviations from the predicted pattern of the motion as the time increases. We can understand this situation by considering the lunar missile probes carried out by the United States and Soviet Union. To hit a target as gar away as the moon involves extreme accuracy in aiming the rocket and giving it the correct initial momentum; if we wish to hit targets at greater distances, our accuracy will have to be increased considerably because the further the distance, the greater the multiplication of any initial error.
Today we use the term quantum mechanics for the entire mathematical scheme that is used to treat problems in atomic, nuclear, elementary-particle, and field physics. The mathematics of quantum mechanics stems directly from Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics and is a consequence of his uncertainty principle. If anyone were to prove his uncertainty principle wrong the foundations of quantum mechanics would fall.
Heisenberg spent the final years of his career trying to derive the properties of such elementary particles as electrons, protons, and so on, from a departure from quantum field theory by having the field itself construct its own particles. Unfortunately, this approach led to a very complex mathematical formulation which some say spoiled the great beauty of quantum mechanics.
Другие работы по теме:
Physics Dirac Poetry Essay Research
Paper Physics + Dirac = poetryWho was the 20th century’s greatest English-speaking poet? TS Eliot, WB Yeats, Sylvia Plath? Not for me; my nomination is the theoretician Paul Dirac, honorary poet laureate of modern physics. It is a status he richly deserves because of his amazing ability to write down fundamental equations – the poems of science.
Romeo An Juliet Essay Research Paper hi
Romeo An Juliet Essay, Research Paper hi i need an essay about a character in romeo and juliet that demonsrtated maturity. in a well developed multi pagraph essay and say why you think the character’s maturity was greater than the other characters in the play.
Haydn And Eszterhaza Essay Research Paper
“Not only did I have the encouragement of constant approval, but as the conductor of the orchestra I could experiment, find out what made a good effect and what weakened it, so I was free to alter, improve, add or omit and be as bold as I pleased. Cut off from the rest of the world I had no one to bother me and I was forced to become original.” The above quote was said by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) during the later years of his life and it refers to the time he spent in Esterhaza.
Advances In Medicine Essay Research Paper As
Advances In Medicine Essay, Research Paper As the history of medicine has evolved, a number of trends and prevailing opinions have swept the profession. One of the most subtle, and yet most revealing results of these sweeping trends manifests itself by altering the tone in medical conversations and dialogues, often available to the non-medical person in the form of texts and literature.
Oh Really Essay Research Paper Oh Reallyyou
Oh Really? Essay, Research Paper Oh Really, you think i am a lark, the dogs they run and bark, but when i say to them, shut up shut up shut up, you say to be nice to them,
Macbeth 16 Essay Research Paper In 1842
Macbeth 16 Essay, Research Paper In 1842 Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the audience sees Macbeth as a tragic hero. Macbeth is presented as a mature man with an established character, successful and enjoying an enviable reputation. *Werner Heisenberg, a German physicist, discovered an analogous phenomenon with his uncertainty principle.
Langston Hughes Essay Research Paper What was
Langston Hughes Essay, Research Paper What was the dream that brought our ancestors to America? It was rebirth, the craving for men to be born again, the yearning for a second chance. With all of these ideas comes the true American dream Freedom. This is the condition in which a man feels like a human being. It is the purpose and consequence of rebirth.
Analysis Of The Human Cultural Identity Essay
, Research Paper Analysis of the Human Cultural Identity This paper is intended to contain the analysis of the human cultural identity, as seen in the following five historical cultural periods:
Shane Essay Research Paper Sometimes I need
Shane Essay, Research Paper Sometimes, I need you more than I need air And sometimes I miss you more than I will forever, never forget the times that we have shaared. The are priceless
Poem Belong Essay Research Paper Where I
Poem: Belong Essay, Research Paper Where I belong I am weak, I am strong I will fit where I belong don’t know where it is for now but it will come, if I allow tomorrow, I start a brand new day
The Characterization Of Macbeth In Relation To
The Development Of Scotland In William Shakespeare’s Essay, Research Paper A German physicist named Wener Heisenberg made a revolutionary breakthrough while observing particles at an atomic level. His observation was, at the same time, revolutionary and somewhat disappointing. He concluded that he could never accurately observe the particles, due to the fact that whenever he attempted to observe the particles, he inevitably altered them in some minute way.
Quantum Physics Essay Research Paper While researching
Quantum Physics Essay, Research Paper While researching quantum physics, I realized that I had just finished a book that was based on quantum theory. At the time, I didn t quite realize that quantum theory and quantum physics were related except in name. Niels Bohr once said, Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
Werner Heisenberg And The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Essay, Research Paper Werner Heisenberg, born in the dawn of the twentieth century became one of its greatest physicists; he is also among its most controversial. While still in his early twenties, he was among the handful of bright, young men who created quantum mechanics, the basic physics of the atom, and he became a leader of nuclear physics and elementary particle research.
Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt nach Dieter Noll
1. Wolzow und Holt: zwei Rivale Als Werner Holt frh an einem Morgen aufwach, fhlte er sich gar nicht erfrischt. Sein Kopf schmerzte und ihm schwindelte. Durch das Fenster schien Maisonnenlicht, und der Flu mit seinen grnen Ufern lockte weit mehr als das graue Schulhaus. Aber Holt mute sich in die Schule beeilen, weil in ein paar Minuten der Unterricht began.
Poem She Sat Essay Research Paper She
Poem: She Sat Essay, Research Paper She sat… helpless in her room praying to whatever god there may be to let her call to him. could god ignore such a painful cry?
Propaganda And Censorship Essay Research Paper Propaganda
Propaganda And Censorship Essay, Research Paper Propaganda and Censorship The Nazi=s used many different types of propaganda and used various methods to censor. These included, the press, the radio, loud speakers, books, theatre, art and music, rallies and campaigns and films.
Werner Heisenberg And The Heisenberg Uncertainty P
Essay, Research Paper Werner Heisenberg and the Heisenberg Uncertainty PrincipleWerner Heisenberg, born in the dawn of the twentieth century became oneof its greatest physicists; he is also among its most controversial. While still in his early twenties, he was among the handful of bright,young men who created quantum mechanics, the basic physics of the atom,and he became a leader of nuclear physics and elementary particleresearch.
Motorcycles Essay Research Paper My goal is
Motorcycles Essay, Research Paper My goal is to explain the evolution of the motorcycle and how their importance has grown in our society. Motorcycles have changed a great deal over the past decade or so. They are constantly being bettered and improved. Slight changes are always being made to these man made machines.
Werner Syndrome Essay Research Paper Psychology 261Instructor
Werner Syndrome Essay, Research Paper Psychology 261 Instructor: Ms Anne Thomas, M.A. October 5, 2000 Page 1 Imagine in your early adolescents being diagnosed with a disease that increases your aging. Doctors tell you that there is no known cure and that you will die by the age of fifty. There is a disease that increases your aging, that disease is known as Werner Syndrome.
Macbeth Essay Research Paper A Sample Macbeth
Macbeth Essay, Research Paper A Sample Macbeth Analysis by Kushal Dave People have a hard time getting what they want; in fact, the things they want can be incompatible with each other. A German physicist named Werner Heisenberg discovered an analogous phenomenon with his uncertainty principle. Studying matter at the atomic level, quantum physics, he realized that the act of measuring affected the object being measured.
Stephen J Hawking Essay Research Paper Stephen
Stephen J. Hawking Essay, Research Paper Stephen J. Hawking by Rachel Finck Stephen Hawking was born in January of 1942 in Oxford, England. He grew up near London and was educated at Oxford, from which he received his
Ode To Boys Essay Research Paper We
Ode To Boys Essay, Research Paper We like them But do they like us The ones we do never fuss They don’t stop in And we wonder why We stress, we bitch We sometimes cry
Friends And Mortal Enemies Essay Research Paper
Friends and mortal enemiesWhen I wrote Copenhagen, about the German physicist Werner Heisenberg’s visit to Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist, in 1941, I thought it unlikely that anyone would want to produce it. Even if I sometimes hoped I might find some small theatre somewhere that would take it on, I can’t remember ever thinking that anyone would come to see it, much less have strong views about it.
Werner Syndrome Essay Research Paper AbstractNowadays those
Werner Syndrome Essay, Research Paper Abstract: Nowadays those involved in aging research view aging in terms of a genetic disease rather than as a natural, evolution-driven process by which the old make way for the young. A condition of aged friends and relatives seems terrible to conceive; they are afflicted with a ghastly wasting disease, a plague whose effects are inescapable because of our own genes.
All For Animals Essay Research Paper All
All For Animals Essay, Research Paper All for Animals WORDS:592 Is it right to take the life of an innocent animal? Animals have been burnt, crushed, sliced, electrocuted, tortured with drugs, poisoned with toxic chemicals, and tormented in psychological testing. They do all these test just to make money or find if a chemical is safe for humans.
History Of Physics Essay Research Paper History
History Of Physics Essay, Research Paper History Of Physics Essay written by: straw_berry_4 Early Physics Physics began when man first started to study his surroundings. Early applications of physics include the invention of the wheel and of primitive weapons. The people who built Stone Henge had a knowledge of physical mechanics in order to move the rocks and place them on top of each other.