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The Beginning and The Problem
After completing his Doctorate Werner became an assistant to Max Born and Niels Bohr at the University of Copenhagen. During this time scientists were working with the current quantum theory model, which worked well for hydrogen but not so much with larger atoms. Heisenberg claimed, that since you couldn’t see the orbit of electrons around a nucleus, such orbits couldn’t be said to really exist. And began his search to find a way to at least in theory where these properties could be observed. -
Can You Look This Over
Werner began writing his paper, "Quantum theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations" where he tried to explain the energy levels of a one-dimensional anharmonic oscillator, avoiding the concrete but unobservable representations of electron orbits by using observable parameters such as transition probabilities for quantum jumps, which necessitated using two indexes corresponding to the initial and final states. He sent a copy to Max Born to review. And later published. -
The Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg developed the uncertainty principle, which states, “the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa.” Which Pauli used it to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom. This result was important in securing credibility for Heisenberg's theory. Later becoming part the basis of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. -
Nobel Prize
In 1932 Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize. It Read "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen."