Werner Heisenberg and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Werner Heisenberg, born in the dawn of the twentieth century became one


of its greatest physicists; he is also among its most controversial.


While still in his early twenties, he was among the handful of bright,


young men who created quantum mechanics, the basic physics of the atom,


and he became a leader of nuclear physics and elementary particle


research.   He is best known for his uncertainty principle, a component


of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of the meaning, and uses of


quantum mechanics.


Through his successful life, he lived through two lost World Wars,


Soviet Revolution, military occupation, two republics, political unrest,


and Hitler’s Third Reich.   He was not a Nazi, and like most scientists


of his day he tried not to become involved in politics.   He played a


prominent role in German nuclear testing during the World War II era.


At age twenty-five he received a full professorship and won the Nobel


Prize in Physics in 1932 at the age of thirty-two.   He climbed quickly


to the top of his field beginning at the University of Munich when his


interest in theoretical physics was sparked


Heisenberg was born the son of August Heisenberg in Würzburg, Germany


on December 5, 1901.   August Heisenberg was a professor of Greek at the


University of Munich. His grandfather was a middle-class craftsman who’s


hard work paid enough to afford a good education for August Heisenberg.


The successfulness of August Heisenberg allowed him to support his


family well.   The professorship at the University of Munich put them in


the upper middle-class elite, and was paid three times the salary of


skilled workers.


Through his life Werner Heisenberg was pestered with health problems.


At the age of five, he nearly died with a lung infection which helped


him get a little...