Werner Heisenberg

created by John Mitchell

Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German Theoretical Physicist who studied quantum mechanics. He is best known for his Uncertainty Principle, which describes the fundamental limit to the accuracy of which the momentum and position of a particle can be measured. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen."

Personal Life and Education

Werner Heisenberg was born on Decemeber 5th, 1901 in Würzburg, Germany. He had his primary and secondary education in Munich. He later studied Physics at the University of Munich. Later, in 1922, he went to Göttingen to study physics under Max Born, Franck, and Hilbert. He received his Ph. D at the University of Munich and became Max Born's assistant. In 1924, he worked with Niels Bohr for a year at the University of Copenhagen. In 1927, he became a professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig. At the end of the Second World War, He and other German Physicists were taken prisoner by the Allied forces and forced to relocate the United Kingdom. He returned to Germany in 1946 to found the Max Planck Institute for Physics. He died on February 1, 1976 in Munich.

Contributions to Physics

Creation of Quantum Mechanics

Before Heisenberg, the generally accepted model of the atom was that of Niels Bohr, in which the electrons of the atom orbited the nucleus in a circular orbit (a model very similar to the planetary model of the solar system).

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References

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-facts.html