Werner Heisenberg

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Summary

Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 - 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century.

He is most well-known for discovering one of the central principles of modern physics, the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle.

He made essential contributions to the concept of a Biocentric Culture (see Vital Unconscious and Biocentric Principle).

Ideas

• The Bohr Model was the current atomic model at the time Heisenberg began his work
  • Although it contained elements of quantum theory, it still ignored the wave character of the electron,
  • Bohr's model also worked only for single-electron hydrogen atoms,
  • Heisenberg decided to try and develop a new atomic model, more fundamentally based on quantum theory, that worked for all atoms.
• Matrix Mechanics
  • Heisenberg articulated the problem facing scientists in the early 20th century - that electrons and other subatomic particles did not possess a physical form, that sometimes they behaved like particles and at other times, like a wave (Wave/ Particle Duality),
  • He resolved the problem by coming up with Matrix Mechanics,
  • Anomalous experimental results in microscopic physics can be explained through the use of matrices.
• Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle
  • While Heisenberg was studying the Transformation Theory of Dirac and Jordan that his uncertainty principle came about,
  • He found out that whenever he tried to measure the position and velocity of a particle at the same time, the results were uncertain,
  • There is an limit to the accuracy with which certain properties (position and momentum) of subatomic particles can simultaneous be determined,
  • The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle says that it is impossible to precisely measure both the velocity and position of an object at the same,
  • Every measurement of a subatomic entity necessarily involves the substantial interference of an observer, so physics must focus on describing the experimental setup, which includes a relationship between an observer and the object observed
  • Statistical descriptions are the most accurate possible descriptions for such systems.