Erwin Schrodinger

claimed by: Patrick Fleming 12/5/2015 3:49pm

Erwin Schrodinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Physicist famous for his developments in Quantum Mechanics and his Schrodinger's Cat philosophical experiment. Erwin Schrodinger wrote on many Physics Fields including but not limited to: statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, dielectrics, colour theory, electrodynamics, general relativity, and cosmology. Erwin also worked on fields other than Physics with works also in genetics, philosophy, ethics, religion, and theoretical biology. The work he did with his mentor, Friedrich Hasenhorl, laid the foundation for a great amount of his final work.

Early Life

Erwin Schrodinger was born in Vienna, Austria on August 12, 1887 as the only child of parents that highly valued education. As a young man he enjoyed botany and painting. Erwin had interest in Eastern religions and was from a religious household but considered himself an atheist. In his early years Schrodinger was strongly influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer and this fueled his extensive works in colour theory and philosophy. Erwin participated in World War One as a commissioned officer in the Austrian fortress artillery. From 1921 to 1934 Schrodinger worked in Germany at the University of Zurich, 1921-1927, then at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, 1927-1934, eventually moving over disliking the German's growing antisemitism. Schrodinger became a felow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford where he received the Nobel Prize along with Paul Dirac. Schrodinger did not stay at Oxford long, the University did not find it acceptable that he shared living quarters with two women and Schrodinger then moved to Princeton University, but did not accept a full time position of similiar problems with living with his wife and mistress. After many struggles of obtaining full time tenure position he corresponded with Albert Einstein to create what is now the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment.

Later Life

Schrodinger dealt with political harassment and pursuit from Germany after openly opposing Nazism in his later years. He lost his job at the University of Graz for political unreliability after apologizing to Germany for previous statements against Nazism. Schrodinger then fled to Italy with his wife, but ended residing in Ireland and helping establish the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. He then moved to Clontarf, Dublin and became the Director of the School for Theoretical Physics in 1940 and remained for 17 years. He became a naturalized citizen of Ireland in 1948, but still retained his Austrian citizenship. Schrodinger retired in 1955 and passed away on January 4th, 1961 where he was born in Vienna, Austria.

Quantum Mechanics

Schrodinger familiarized himself with the works of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Arnold Sommerfeld, and others in his earlier years. This laid the basics for his later works in the Quantum field. Schrodinger's first publications came in the beginning of the 1920's and were based on atomic theory and the theory of spectra. From early in his career a particular interest of Schrodinger was the introduction of relativistic considerations in quantum theory. In the autumn of 1922 Schrodinger analyzed the orbits of electrons in an atom using methods developed by Hermann Weyl. This work was important for Schrodinger's large quantum discovery of wave mechanics. Earlier in 1922 Schrodinger created the Schrodinger equation for relativistic Doppler effect for a spectral lines, based on the hypothesis of light quanta and considerations of energy and momentum. The idea that energy could be a statistical concept was a lifelong attraction for Schrodinger and he discussed this idea in several reports and publications.

Wave Mechanics

Schrodinger's Cat

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All Published Works

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Example of Wave Mechanics

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Erwin Schrodinger

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