The Sorrows of Old Werner

[...] Heisenberg was awarded the reserved 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on matrix mechanics; that same year the 1933 prize was awarded to Austrian Erwin Schrödinger, for his development of wave mechanics (an equivalent form of quantum mechanics developed almost simultaneously with it), an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American Scientist 2010, Vol.98 (5), p.426-428
Main Author: Gordin, Michael D.
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Awards & honors
Nuclear fission
Philosophy
PHYSICS
Quantum theory
Science
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:[...] Heisenberg was awarded the reserved 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on matrix mechanics; that same year the 1933 prize was awarded to Austrian Erwin Schrödinger, for his development of wave mechanics (an equivalent form of quantum mechanics developed almost simultaneously with it), and to Paul A. M. Dirac, the cryptic British physicist who also pushed quantum physics into maturity. In the most detailed treatment of the topic available in English, Carson chronicles Heisenberg's deep involvement in science policy in the new, truncated Germany - whether in civilian nuclear power, the Göttingen manifesto against German nuclear weapons, or state funding of basic research - as part of the physicist's and the state's anxiety over a new, post-Nazi polity.
ISSN:0003-0996
1545-2786