 |
Heisenberg,
Werner Karl German physicist Born: Duisberg, Germany, December 5, 1901 Died: , | |||||||||
Avogadro Becquerel Bohr Doppler Einstein Geiger Heisenberg Hertz Kirchhoff Planck Roentgen Rutherford Schrodinger |
Heisenberg obtained a Ph.D in physics from the University of Munich in 1923. He also worked as an assistant to Bohr in Copenhagen. At that time, other particle physicists, such as Schrodinger, were trying to devise theories that could present atoms in different ways, for example, by treating electrons as wave forms rather than as particles. Heisenberg disagreed with this approach, and in 1927, he devised a system called matrix mechanics, utilising matrix algebra, which described how the wavelengths of spectral lines were formed. His studies of nuclear theory helped him to describe the two states of the hydrogen molecule, ortho-hydrogen, in which the nuclei of both atoms spin in the same direction, and para-hydrogen, where they spin in opposite directions. This theory was confirmed in 1929, and had a significant effect in the reduction of the evaporation of liquid hydrogen, which was important later in the study of rocket fuels. Heisenberg also formulated the important uncertainty principle. This principle states that it is impossible to make a simultaneous determination of the position and the momentum of any body. The more exact the one determination is, the less exact is the other. These uncertainties, when multiplied, provide a value approximately equal to that of Plancks Constant. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1932 for this discovery. Heisenberg also later worked on theories relating to the forces holding electrons to a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons. During World War II he was in charge of German research on the atomic bomb. After the war, he became director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics at Gottingen. | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
vb-tech.co.za