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Early Life
Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on DEC 5th, 1901 in Würzburg, Germany to August Heisenberg and Anna Wecklein. His father was a scholar and teacher of ancient Greek philology and modern Greek literature. At a young age, it was apparent that Werner was gifted in Mathematics as well as music. He played the piano all his life. Heisenberg enrolled at the University of Munich in 1920, and studied under Arnold Sommerfeld, an expert on atomic spectroscopy and exponent of the quantum model of physics. -
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
in 1927, Heisenberg introduced his Uncertainty principle in a paper he wrote. Simply put, he stated that the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwin-cjF-bTxAhVh5OAKHf3KC3YQwqsBMA16BAglEAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTQKELOE9eY4&usg=AOvVaw2QgZdvffGVFIq07_A2RHcU -
Nobel Prize Winning Contribution to Quantum Physics
In 1923, Heisenberg received a P.h.D in Physics from the University of Munich. While still a student of Sommerfeld, Werner became an assistant student of Max Born and first met Niels Bohr at the University of Göttingen. Heisenberg is best known for his uncertainty principle and theory of quantum mechanics, which he published at the age of twenty-three. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932 for his subsequent research and application of this principle. -
Heisenberg and the Nazis
Heisenberg declined to leave Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party. He was drafted to work for the Army Weapons Bureau. The goal was the production of an atomic bomb and Heisenberg was the leading scientist. He was never successful in producing either a reactor or an atomic weapon. Some accounts say he deliberately delayed or sabotaged his research team's efforts. After the war, Heisenberg and a number of other prominent German physicists were interned at Farm Hall in England.