Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical
physicist and one of the key creators of quantum
mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in
a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series
of papers with Max Born and Pascual Jordan,
during the same year, this matrix formulation
of quantum mechanics was substantially elaborated.
In 1927 he published his uncertainty principle,
upon which he built his philosophy and for
which he is best known. Heisenberg was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 "for the
creation of quantum mechanics". He also made
important contributions to the theories of
the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the
atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays,
and subatomic particles, and he was instrumental
in planning the first West German nuclear
reactor at Karlsruhe, together with a research
reactor in Munich, in 1957. Considerable controversy
surrounds his work on atomic research during
World War II.
Following World War II, he was appointed director
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics,
which soon thereafter was renamed the Max
Planck Institute for Physics. He was director
of the institute until it was moved to Munich
in 1958, when it was expanded and renamed
the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics.
Heisenberg was also president of the German
Research Council, chairman of the Commission
for Atomic Physics, chairman of the Nuclear
Physics Working Group, and president of the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Life and career
Early years
Heisenberg was born in Würzburg, Germany,
to Kaspar Earnesta August Heisenberg, a secondary
school teacher of classical languages who
became Germany's only ordentlicher Professor
(ordinarius professor) of medieval and modern
Greek studies in the university system, and
his wife, Annie Wecklein.
He studied physics and mathematics from 1920
to 1923 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
München and the Georg-August-Universität
Göttingen. At Munich, he studied under Arnold
Sommerfeld and Wilhelm Wien. At Göttingen,
he studied physics with Max Born and James
Franck, and he studied mathematics with David
Hilbert. He received his doctorate in 1923,
at Munich under Sommerfeld. He completed his
Habilitation in 1924, at Göttingen under
Born.
Because Sommerfeld had a sincere interest
in his students and knew of Heisenberg's interest
in Niels Bohr's theories on atomic physics,
Sommerfeld took Heisenberg to Göttingen to
the Bohr-Festspiele (Bohr Festival) in June
1922. At the event, Bohr was a guest lecturer
and gave a series of comprehensive lectures
on quantum atomic physics. There, Heisenberg
met Bohr for the first time, and it had a
significant and continuing effect on him.
Heisenberg's doctoral thesis, the topic of
which was suggested by Sommerfeld, was on
turbulence; the thesis discussed both the
stability of laminar flow and the nature of
turbulent flow. The problem of stability was
investigated by the use of the Orr–Sommerfeld
equation, a fourth order linear differential
equation for small disturbances from laminar
flow. He briefly returned to this topic after
World War II.
Heisenberg's paper on the anomalous Zeeman
effect was accepted as his Habilitationsschrift
(Habilitation thesis) under Max Born at Göttingen.
In his youth he was a member and Scoutleader
of the Neupfadfinder, a German Scout association
and part of the German Youth Movement. In
August 1923 Robert Honsell and Heisenberg
organized a trip (Großfahrt) to Finland with
a Scout group of this association from Munich.
Career
Göttingen, Copenhagen, and Leipzig
From 1924 to 1927, Heisenberg was a Privatdozent
at Göttingen. From 17 September 1924 to 1
May 1925, under an International Education
Board Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, Heisenberg
went to do research with Niels Bohr, director
of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at
the University of Copenhagen. His seminal
paper, Über quantentheoretischer Umdeutung
was published in September 1925. He returned
to Göttingen and with Max Born and Pascual
Jordan, over a period of about six months,
developed the matrix mechanics formulation
of quantum mechanics. On 1 May 1926, Heisenberg
began his appointment as a university lecturer
and assistant to Bohr in Copenhagen. It was
in Copenhagen, in 1927, that Heisenberg developed
his uncertainty principle, while working on
the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics.
On 23 February, Heisenberg wrote a letter
to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which
he first described his new principle. In his
paper on the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg
used the word "Ungenauigkeit" (imprecision).
In 1927, Heisenberg was appointed ordentlicher
Professor (ordinarius professor) of theoretical
physics and head of the department of physics
at the Universität Leipzig; he gave his inaugural
lecture on 1 February 1928. In his first paper
published from Leipzig, Heisenberg used the
Pauli exclusion principle to solve the mystery
of ferromagnetism.
In Heisenberg's tenure at Leipzig, the quality
of doctoral students, post-graduate and research
associates who studied and worked with Heisenberg
there is attested to by the acclaim later
earned by these people; at various times,
they included: Erich Bagge, Felix Bloch, Ugo
Fano, Siegfried Flügge, William Vermillion
Houston, Friedrich Hund, Robert S. Mulliken,
Rudolf Peierls, George Placzek, Isidor Isaac
Rabi, Fritz Sauter, John C. Slater, Edward
Teller, John Hasbrouck van Vleck, Victor Frederick
Weisskopf, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker,
Gregor Wentzel and Clarence Zener.
In early 1929, Heisenberg and Pauli submitted
the first of two papers laying the foundation
for relativistic quantum field theory. Also
in 1929, Heisenberg went on a lecture tour
in China, Japan, India, and the United States.
Shortly after the discovery of the neutron
by James Chadwick in 1932, Heisenberg submitted
the first of three papers on his neutron-proton
model of the nucleus. He was awarded the 1932
Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1928, the British mathematical physicist
P. A. M. Dirac had derived the relativistic
wave equation of quantum mechanics, which
implied the existence of positive electrons,
later to be named positrons. In 1932, from
a cloud chamber photograph of cosmic rays,
the American physicist Carl David Anderson
identified a track as having been made by
a positron. In mid-1933, Heisenberg presented
his theory of the positron. His thinking on
Dirac's theory and further development of
the theory were set forth in two papers. The
first, Bemerkungen zur Diracschen Theorie
des Positrons (Remarks on Dirac's theory of
the positron) was published in 1934, and the
second, Folgerungen aus der Diracschen Theorie
des Positrons (Consequences of Dirac's Theory
of the Positron), was published in 1936. In
these papers Heisenberg was the first to reinterpret
the Dirac equation as a "classical" field
equation for any point particle of spin ħ/2,
itself subject to quantization conditions
involving anti-commutators. Thus reinterpreting
it as a (quantum) field equation accurately
describing electrons, Heisenberg put matter
on the same footing as electromagnetism: as
being described by relativistic quantum field
equations which allowed the possibility of
particle creation and destruction.
In the early 1930s in Germany, the deutsche
Physik movement was anti-Semitic and anti-theoretical
physics, especially including quantum mechanics
and the theory of relativity. As applied in
the university environment, political factors
took priority over the historically applied
concept of scholarly ability, even though
its two most prominent supporters were the
Nobel Laureates in Physics Philipp Lenard
and Johannes Stark.
After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933,
Heisenberg was attacked in the press as a
"White Jew" by elements of the deutsche Physik
(German Physics) movement for his insistence
on teaching about the roles of Jewish scientists.
As a result, he came under investigation by
the SS. This was over an attempt to appoint
Heisenberg as successor to Arnold Sommerfeld
at the University of Munich. The issue was
resolved in 1938 by Heinrich Himmler, head
of the SS. While Heisenberg was not chosen
as Sommerfeld's successor, he was rehabilitated
to the physics community during the Third
Reich. Nevertheless, supporters of deutsche
Physik launched vicious attacks against leading
theoretical physicists, including Arnold Sommerfeld
and Heisenberg. On 29 June 1936, a National
Socialist Party newspaper published a column
attacking Heisenberg. On 15 July 1937, he
was attacked in a journal of the SS. This
was the beginning of what is called the Heisenberg
Affair.
In mid-1936, Heisenberg presented his theory
of cosmic-ray showers in two papers. Four
more papers appeared in the next two years.
In June 1939, Heisenberg bought a summer home
for his family in Urfeld, in southern Germany.
He also traveled to the United States in June
and July, visiting Samuel Abraham Goudsmit,
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
However, Heisenberg refused an invitation
to emigrate to the United States. He did not
see Goudsmit again until six years later,
when Goudsmit was the chief scientific advisor
to the American Operation Alsos at the close
of World War II. Ironically, Heisenberg was
arrested under Operation Alsos and detained
in England under Operation Epsilon.
Matrix mechanics and the Nobel Prize
Heisenberg’s paper establishing quantum
mechanics has puzzled physicists and historians.
His methods assume that the reader is familiar
with Kramers-Heisenberg transition probability
calculations. The main new idea, noncommuting
matrices, is justified only by a rejection
of unobservable quantities. It introduces
the non-commutative multiplication of matrices
by physical reasoning, based on the correspondence
principle, despite the fact that Heisenberg
was not then familiar with the mathematical
theory of matrices. The path leading to these
results has been reconstructed in MacKinnon,
1977, and the detailed calculations are worked
out in Aitchison et al.
In Copenhagen, Heisenberg and Hans Kramers
collaborated on a paper on dispersion, or
the scattering from atoms of radiation whose
wavelength is larger than the atoms. They
showed that the successful formula Kramers
had developed earlier could not be based on
Bohr orbits, because the transition frequencies
are based on level spacings which are not
constant. The frequencies which occur in the
Fourier transform of sharp classical orbits,
by contrast, are equally spaced. But these
results could be explained by a semi-classical
Virtual State model: the incoming radiation
excites the valence, or outer, electron to
a virtual state from which it decays. In a
subsequent paper Heisenberg showed that this
virtual oscillator model could also explain
the polarization of fluorescent radiation.
These two successes, and the continuing failure
of the Bohr-Sommerfeld model to explain the
outstanding problem of the anomalous Zeeman
effect, led Heisenberg to use the virtual
oscillator model to try to calculate spectral
frequencies. The method proved too difficult
to immediately apply to realistic problems,
so Heisenberg turned to a simpler example,
the anharmonic oscillator.
The dipole oscillator consists of a simple
harmonic oscillator, which is thought of as
a charged particle on a spring, perturbed
by an external force, like an external charge.
The motion of the oscillating charge can be
expressed as a Fourier series in the frequency
of the oscillator. Heisenberg solved for the
quantum behavior by two different methods.
First, he treated the system with the virtual
oscillator method, calculating the transitions
between the levels that would be produced
by the external source.
He then solved the same problem by treating
the anharmonic potential term as a perturbation
to the harmonic oscillator and using the perturbation
methods that he and Born had developed. Both
methods led to the same results for the first
and the very complicated second order correction
terms. This suggested that behind the very
complicated calculations lay a consistent
scheme.
So Heisenberg set out to formulate these results
without any explicit dependence on the virtual
oscillator model. To do this, he replaced
the Fourier expansions for the spatial coordinates
by matrices, matrices which corresponded to
the transition coefficients in the virtual
oscillator method. He justified this replacement
by an appeal to Bohr’s correspondence principle
and the Pauli doctrine that quantum mechanics
must be limited to observables.
On 9 July, Heisenberg gave Born this paper
to review and submit for publication. When
Born read the paper, he recognized the formulation
as one which could be transcribed and extended
to the systematic language of matrices, which
he had learned from his study under Jakob
Rosanes at Breslau University. Born, with
the help of his assistant and former student
Pascual Jordan, began immediately to make
the transcription and extension, and they
submitted their results for publication; the
paper was received for publication just 60
days after Heisenberg's paper. A follow-on
paper was submitted for publication before
the end of the year by all three authors.
(A brief review of Born's role in the development
of the matrix mechanics formulation of quantum
mechanics along with a discussion of the key
formula involving the non-commutivity of the
probability amplitudes can be found in an
article by Jeremy Bernstein, Max Born and
the Quantum Theory. A detailed historical
and technical account can be found in Mehra
and Rechenberg's book The Historical Development
of Quantum Theory. Volume 3. The Formulation
of Matrix Mechanics and Its Modifications
1925–1926.)
Up until this time, matrices were seldom used
by physicists; they were considered to belong
to the realm of pure mathematics. Gustav Mie
had used them in a paper on electrodynamics
in 1912 and Born had used them in his work
on the lattices theory of crystals in 1921.
While matrices were used in these cases, the
algebra of matrices with their multiplication
did not enter the picture as they did in the
matrix formulation of quantum mechanics.
Born had learned matrix algebra from Rosanes,
as already noted, but Born had also learned
Hilbert's theory of integral equations and
quadratic forms for an infinite number of
variables as was apparent from a citation
by Born of Hilbert's work Grundzüge einer
allgemeinen Theorie der Linearen Integralgleichungen
published in 1912. Jordan, too was well equipped
for the task. For a number of years, he had
been an assistant to Richard Courant at Göttingen
in the preparation of Courant and David Hilbert's
book Methoden der mathematischen Physik I,
which was published in 1924. This book, fortuitously,
contained a great many of the mathematical
tools necessary for the continued development
of quantum mechanics. In 1926, John von Neumann
became assistant to David Hilbert, and he
coined the term Hilbert space to describe
the algebra and analysis which were used in
the development of quantum mechanics.
In 1928, Albert Einstein nominated Heisenberg,
Born, and Jordan for the Nobel Prize in Physics,
but it was not to be. The announcement of
the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 was delayed
until November 1933. It was at that time that
it was announced Heisenberg had won the Prize
for 1932 "for the creation of quantum mechanics,
the application of which has, inter alia,
led to the discovery of the allotropic forms
of hydrogen" and Erwin Schrödinger and Paul
Adrien Maurice Dirac shared the 1933 Prize
"for the discovery of new productive forms
of atomic theory". One can rightly ask why
Born was not awarded the Prize in 1932 along
with Heisenberg – Bernstein gives some
speculations on this matter. One of them is
related to Jordan joining the Nazi Party on
1 May 1933 and becoming a Storm Trooper. Hence,
Jordan's Party affiliations and Jordan's links
to Born may have affected Born's chance at
the Prize at that time. Bernstein also notes
that when Born won the Prize in 1954, Jordan
was still alive, and the Prize was awarded
for the statistical interpretation of quantum
mechanics, attributable alone to Born.
Heisenberg's reaction to Born for Heisenberg
receiving the Prize for 1932 and to Born for
Born receiving the Prize in 1954 are also
instructive in evaluating whether Born should
have shared the Prize with Heisenberg. On
25 November 1933, Born received a letter from
Heisenberg in which he said he had been delayed
in writing due to a "bad conscience" that
he alone had received the Prize "for work
done in Göttingen in collaboration – you,
Jordan and I." Heisenberg went on to say that
Born and Jordan's contribution to quantum
mechanics cannot be changed by "a wrong decision
from the outside." In 1954, Heisenberg wrote
an article honoring Max Planck for his insight
in 1900. In the article, Heisenberg credited
Born and Jordan for the final mathematical
formulation of matrix mechanics and Heisenberg
went on to stress how great their contributions
were to quantum mechanics, which were not
"adequately acknowledged in the public eye."
The Deutsche Physik movement
On 1 April 1935, the eminent theoretical physicist
Arnold Sommerfeld, Heisenberg's doctoral advisor
at the University of Munich, achieved emeritus
status. However, Sommerfeld stayed in his
chair during the selection process for his
successor, which took until 1 December 1939.
The process was lengthy due to academic and
political differences between the Munich Faculty's
selection and that of the Reichserziehungsministerium
(REM, Reich Education Ministry) and the supporters
of Deutsche Physik, which was anti-Semitic
and had a bias against theoretical physics,
especially quantum mechanics and the theory
of relativity.
In 1935, the Munich Faculty drew up a list
of candidates to replace Sommerfeld as ordinarius
professor of theoretical physics and head
of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at
the University of Munich. There were three
names on the list: Werner Heisenberg, who
received the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932,
Peter Debye, who received the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1936, and Richard Becker – all
former students of Sommerfeld. The Munich
Faculty was firmly behind these candidates,
with Heisenberg as their first choice. However,
supporters of Deutsche Physik and elements
in the REM had their own list of candidates,
and the battle dragged on for over four years.
During this time, Heisenberg came under vicious
attack by the Deutsche Physik supporters.
One attack was published in Das Schwarze Korps,
the newspaper of the Schutzstaffel (SS), headed
by Heinrich Himmler. In this, Heisenberg was
called a "White Jew" (i.e. an Aryan who acts
like a Jew) who should be made to "disappear".
These attacks were taken seriously, as Jews
were violently attacked and incarcerated.
Heisenberg fought back with an editorial and
a letter to Himmler, in an attempt to resolve
this matter and regain his honour.
At one point, Heisenberg's mother visited
Himmler's mother. The two women knew each
other, as Heisenberg's maternal grandfather
and Himmler's father were rectors and members
of a Bavarian hiking club. Eventually, Himmler
settled the Heisenberg affair by sending two
letters, one to SS Gruppenführer Reinhard
Heydrich and one to Heisenberg, both on 21
July 1938. In the letter to Heydrich, Himmler
said Germany could not afford to lose or silence
Heisenberg, as he would be useful for teaching
a generation of scientists. To Heisenberg,
Himmler said the letter came on recommendation
of his family and he cautioned Heisenberg
to make a distinction between professional
physics research results and the personal
and political attitudes of the involved scientists.
The letter to Heisenberg was signed under
the closing "Mit freundlichem Gruß und, Heil
Hitler!" (With friendly greetings, Heil Hitler!")
Overall, the Heisenberg affair was a victory
for academic standards and professionalism.
However, the appointment of Wilhelm Müller
to replace Sommerfeld was a political victory
over academic standards. Müller was not a
theoretical physicist, had not published in
a physics journal, and was not a member of
the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft; his
appointment was considered a travesty and
detrimental to educating theoretical physicists.
During the SS investigation of Heisenberg,
the three investigators had training in physics.
Heisenberg had participated in the doctoral
examination of one of them at the Universität
Leipzig. The most influential of the three,
however, was Johannes Juilfs. During their
investigation, they had become supporters
of Heisenberg as well as his position against
the ideological policies of the deutsche Physik
movement in theoretical physics and academia.
World War II
In 1939, shortly after the discovery of nuclear
fission, the German nuclear energy project,
also known as the Uranverein (Uranium Club),
had begun. Heisenberg was one of the principal
scientists leading research and development
in the project.
From 15 to 22 September 1941, Heisenberg traveled
to German-occupied Copenhagen to lecture and
discuss nuclear research and theoretical physics
with Niels Bohr. The meeting, and specifically
what it might reveal about Heisenberg's intentions
concerning developing nuclear weapons for
the Nazi regime, is the subject of the award-winning
Michael Frayn play titled Copenhagen. A television
film version of the play was made by the BBC
in 2002, with Stephen Rea as Bohr, and Daniel
Craig as Heisenberg. The same meeting had
previously been dramatised by the BBC's Horizon
science documentary series in 1992, with Anthony
Bate as Bohr, and Philip Anthony as Heisenberg.
Documents relating to the Bohr-Heisenberg
meeting were released in 2002 by the Niels
Bohr Archive and by the Heisenberg family.
On 26 February 1942, Heisenberg presented
a lecture to Reich officials on energy acquisition
from nuclear fission, after the Army withdrew
most of its funding. The Uranium Club was
transferred to the Reich Research Council
(RFR) in July 1942. On 4 June 1942, Heisenberg
was summoned to report to Albert Speer, Germany's
Minister of Armaments, on the prospects for
converting the Uranium Club's research toward
developing nuclear weapons. During the meeting,
Heisenberg told Speer that a bomb could not
be built before 1945, and would require significant
monetary and manpower resources. Five days
later, on 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued
a decree for the reorganization of the RFR
as a separate legal entity under the Reich
Ministry for Armament and Ammunition; the
decree appointed Reich Marshall Hermann Göring
as the president.
In September 1942, Heisenberg submitted his
first paper of a three-part series on the
scattering matrix, or S-matrix, in elementary
particle physics. The first two papers were
published in 1943 and the third in 1944. The
S-matrix described only observables, i.e.,
the states of incident particles in a collision
process, the states of those emerging from
the collision, and stable bound states; there
would be no reference to the intervening states.
This was the same precedent as he followed
in 1925 in what turned out to be the foundation
of the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics
through only the use of observables.
In February 1943, Heisenberg was appointed
to the Chair for Theoretical Physics at the
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (today, the
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). In April,
his election to the Preußische Akademie der
Wissenschaften (Prussian Academy of Sciences)
was approved. That same month, he moved his
family to their retreat in Urfeld as Allied
bombing increased in Berlin. In the summer,
he dispatched the first of his staff at the
Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik to Hechingen
and its neighboring town of Haigerloch, on
the edge of the Black Forest, for the same
reasons. From 18–26 October, he traveled
to German-occupied Netherlands. In December
1943, Heisenberg visited German-occupied Poland.
From 24 January to 4 February 1944, Heisenberg
traveled to occupied Copenhagen, after the
German Army confiscated Bohr's Institute of
Theoretical Physics. He made a short return
trip in April. In December, Heisenberg lectured
in neutral Switzerland.
In January 1945, Heisenberg, with most of
the rest of his staff, moved from the Kaiser-Wilhelm
Institut für Physik to the facilities in
the Black Forest.
Uranium Club
In December 1938, the German chemists Otto
Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript
to Naturwissenschaften reporting they had
detected the element barium after bombarding
uranium with neutrons; simultaneously, they
communicated these results to Lise Meitner,
who had in July of that year fled to the Netherlands
and then went to Sweden.
Meitner, and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch,
correctly interpreted these results as being
nuclear fission. Frisch confirmed this experimentally
on 13 January 1939.
Paul Harteck was director of the physical
chemistry department at the University of
Hamburg and an advisor to the Heereswaffenamt
(HWA, Army Ordnance Office). On 24 April 1939,
along with his teaching assistant Wilhelm
Groth, Harteck made contact with the Reichskriegsministerium
(RKM, Reich Ministry of War) to alert them
to the potential of military applications
of nuclear chain reactions. Two days earlier,
on 22 April 1939, after hearing a colloquium
paper by Wilhelm Hanle on the use of uranium
fission in a Uranmaschine (uranium machine,
i.e., nuclear reactor), Georg Joos, along
with Hanle, notified Wilhelm Dames, at the
Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Ministry
of Education), of potential military applications
of nuclear energy. The communication was given
to Abraham Esau, head of the physics section
of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research
Council) at the REM. On 29 April, a group,
organized by Esau, met at the REM to discuss
the potential of a sustained nuclear chain
reaction.
The group included the physicists Walther
Bothe, Robert Döpel, Hans Geiger, Wolfgang
Gentner (probably sent by Walther Bothe),
Wilhelm Hanle, Gerhard Hoffmann and Georg
Joos; Peter Debye was invited, but he did
not attend. After this, informal work began
at the Georg-August University of Göttingen
by Joos, Hanle and their colleague Reinhold
Mannfopff; the group of physicists was known
informally as the first Uranverein (Uranium
Club) and formally as Arbeitsgemeinschaft
für Kernphysik. The group's work was discontinued
in August 1939, when the three were called
to military training.
The second Uranverein began after the Heereswaffenamt
(HWA, Army Ordnance Office) squeezed the Reichsforschungsrat
(RFR, Reich Research Council) out of the Reichserziehungsministerium
(REM, Reich Ministry of Education) and started
the formal German nuclear energy project under
military auspices. The second Uranverein was
formed on 1 September 1939, the day World
War II began, and it had its first meeting
on 16 September 1939. The meeting was organized
by Kurt Diebner, advisor to the HWA, and held
in Berlin. The invitees included Walther Bothe,
Siegfried Flügge, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn,
Paul Harteck, Gerhard Hoffmann, Josef Mattauch
and Georg Stetter. A second meeting was held
soon thereafter and included Klaus Clusius,
Robert Döpel, Werner Heisenberg and Carl
Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Also at this time,
the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP,
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, after
World War II the Max Planck Institute for
Physics), in Berlin-Dahlem, was placed under
HWA authority, with Diebner as the administrative
director, and the military control of the
nuclear research commenced.
When it was apparent that the nuclear energy
project would not make a decisive contribution
to ending the war effort in the near term,
control of the KWIP was returned in January
1942 to its umbrella organization, the Kaiser-Wilhelm
Gesellschaft (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society,
after World War II the Max-Planck Gesellschaft),
and HWA control of the project was relinquished
to the RFR in July 1942. The nuclear energy
project thereafter maintained its kriegswichtig
(important for the war) designation and funding
continued from the military. However, the
German nuclear power project was then broken
down into the following main areas: uranium
and heavy water production, uranium isotope
separation and the Uranmaschine (uranium machine,
i.e., nuclear reactor). Also, the project
was then essentially split up between a number
of institutes, where the directors dominated
the research and set their own research agendas.
The dominant personnel and facilities were
the following:
Institut für Physik (Walther Bothe) of the
Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für medizinische
Forschung (KWImF, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Medical Research),
Institute for Physical Chemistry (Klaus Clusius)
at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich,
HWA Versuchsstelle (testing station) in Gottow
(Kurt Diebner),
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie (Otto
Hahn),
Physical Chemistry Department (Paul Harteck)
of the University of Hamburg,
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik (Werner
Heisenberg),
Second Experimental Physics Institute (Hans
Kopfermann) at the Georg-August University
of Göttingen,
Auergesellschaft (Nikolaus Riehl), and
II. Physikalisches Institut (Georg Stetter)
at the University of Vienna.
Heisenberg was appointed director-in-residence
of the KWIP on 1 July 1942, as Peter Debye
was still officially the director and on leave
in the United States; Debye had gone on leave
as he was a citizen of The Netherlands and
had refused to become a German citizen when
the HWA took administrative control of the
KWIP. Heisenberg still also had his department
of physics at the University of Leipzig where
work was done for the Uranverein by Robert
Döpel and his wife Klara Döpel. During the
period Kurt Diebner administered the KWIP
under the HWA program, considerable personal
and professional animosity developed between
Diebner and the Heisenberg inner circle –
Heisenberg, Karl Wirtz, and Carl Friedrich
von Weizsäcker.
The point in 1942, when the army relinquished
its control of the German nuclear energy project,
was the zenith of the project relative to
the number of personnel devoting time to the
effort. There were only about 70 scientists
working on the project, with about 40 devoting
more than half their time to nuclear fission
research. After this, the number of scientists
working on applied nuclear fission diminished
dramatically. Many of the scientists not working
with the main institutes stopped working on
nuclear fission and devoted their efforts
to more pressing war related work.
Over time, the HWA and then the RFR controlled
the German nuclear energy project. The most
influential people in the project were Kurt
Diebner, Abraham Esau, Walther Gerlach and
Erich Schumann. Schumann was one of the most
powerful and influential physicists in Germany.
Schumann was director of the Physics Department
II at the Frederick William University (later,
University of Berlin), which was commissioned
and funded by the Oberkommando des Heeres
(OKH, Army High Command) to conduct physics
research projects. He was also head of the
research department of the HWA, assistant
secretary of the Science Department of the
OKH and Bevollmächtiger (plenipotentiary)
for high explosives. Diebner, throughout the
life of the nuclear energy project, had more
control over nuclear fission research than
did Walther Bothe, Klaus Clusius, Otto Hahn,
Paul Harteck or Werner Heisenberg.
1945: Operation Alsos and Operation Epsilon
Operation Alsos was an Allied effort commanded
by the Russian-American Colonel Boris T. Pash.
He reported directly to General Leslie Groves,
commander of the Manhattan Engineer District,
which was developing atomic weapons for the
United States. The chief scientific advisor
to Operation Alsos was the physicist Samuel
Abraham Goudsmit. Goudsmit was selected for
this task because of his knowledge of physics,
he spoke German, and he personally knew a
number of the German scientists working on
the German nuclear energy project. He also
knew little of the Manhattan Project, so,
if he were captured, he would have little
intelligence value to the Germans.
The objectives of Operation Alsos were to
determine if the Germans had an atomic bomb
program and to exploit German atomic related
facilities, intellectual materials, materiel
resources, and scientific personnel for the
benefit of the US. Personnel on this operation
generally swept into areas which had just
come under control of the Allied military
forces, but sometimes they operated in areas
still under control by German forces.
Berlin had been a location of many German
scientific research facilities. To limit casualties
and loss of equipment, many of these facilities
were dispersed to other locations in the latter
years of the war. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut
für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Physics) had mostly been moved in 1943
and 1944 to Hechingen and its neighboring
town of Haigerloch, on the edge of the Black
Forest, which eventually became the French
occupation zone. This move and a little luck
allowed the Americans to take into custody
a large number of German scientists associated
with nuclear research. The only section of
the institute which remained in Berlin was
the low-temperature physics section, headed
by Ludwig Bewilogua (1906–83), who was in
charge of the exponential uranium pile.
Nine of the prominent German scientists who
published reports in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte
as members of the Uranverein were picked up
by Operation Alsos and incarcerated in England
under Operation Epsilon: Erich Bagge, Kurt
Diebner, Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, Paul
Harteck, Werner Heisenberg, Horst Korsching,
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Karl Wirtz.
Also, incarcerated was Max von Laue, although
he had nothing to do with the nuclear energy
project. Goudsmit, the chief scientific advisor
to Operation Alsos, thought von Laue might
be beneficial to the postwar rebuilding of
Germany and would benefit from the high level
contacts he would have in England.
Heisenberg had been captured and arrested
by Colonel Pash at Heisenberg's retreat in
Urfeld, on 3 May 1945, in what was a true
alpine-type operation in territory still under
control by German forces. He was taken to
Heidelberg, where, on 5 May, he met Goudsmit
for the first time since the Ann Arbor visit
in 1939. Germany surrendered just two days
later. Heisenberg did not see his family again
for eight months. Heisenberg was moved across
France and Belgium and flown to England on
3 July 1945.
The 10 German scientists were held at Farm
Hall in England. The facility had been a safe
house of the British foreign intelligence
MI6. During their detention, their conversations
were recorded. Conversations thought to be
of intelligence value were transcribed and
translated into English. The transcripts were
released in 1992. Bernstein has published
an annotated version of the transcripts in
his book Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret
Recordings at Farm Hall, along with an introduction
to put them in perspective. A complete, unedited
publication of the British version of the
reports appeared as Operation Epsilon: The
Farm Hall Transcripts, which was published
in 1993 by the Institute of Physics in Bristol
and by the University of California Press
in the US.
Post 1945
On 3 January 1946, the 10 Operation Epsilon
detainees were transported to Alswede in Germany,
which was in the British occupation zone.
Heisenberg settled in Göttingen, also in
the British zone. In July, he was named director
of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik
(KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics),
then located in Göttingen. Shortly thereafter,
it was renamed the Max-Planck-Institut für
Physik, in honor of Max Planck and to assuage
political objections to the continuation of
the institute. Heisenberg was its director
until 1958. In 1958, the institute was moved
to Munich, expanded, and renamed Max-Planck-Institut
für Physik und Astrophysik (MPIFA). Heisenberg
was its director from 1960 to 1970; in the
interim, Heisenberg and the astrophysicist
Ludwig Biermann were co-directors. Heisenberg
resigned his directorship of the MPIFA on
31 December 1970. Upon the move to Munich,
Heisenberg also became an ordentlicher Professor
(ordinarius professor) at the University of
Munich.
Just as the Americans did with Operation Alsos,
the Soviets inserted special search teams
into Germany and Austria in the wake of their
troops. Their objective, under the Russian
Alsos, was also the exploitation of German
atomic related facilities, intellectual materials,
materiel resources and scientific personnel
for the benefit of the Soviet Union. One of
the German scientists recruited under this
Soviet operation was the nuclear physicist
Heinz Pose, who was made head of Laboratory
V in Obninsk. When he returned to Germany
on a recruiting trip for his laboratory, Pose
wrote a letter to Werner Heisenberg inviting
him to work in the USSR. The letter lauded
the working conditions in the USSR and the
available resources, as well as the favorable
attitude of the Soviets towards German scientists.
A courier hand delivered the recruitment letter,
dated 18 July 1946, to Heisenberg; Heisenberg
politely declined in a return letter to Pose.
In 1947, Heisenberg presented lectures in
Cambridge, Edinburgh and Bristol. Heisenberg
also contributed to the understanding of the
phenomenon of superconductivity with a paper
in 1947 and two papers in 1948, one of them
with Max von Laue.
In the period shortly after World War II,
Heisenberg briefly returned to the subject
of his doctoral thesis, turbulence. Three
papers were published in 1948 and one in 1950.
In the post-war period, Heisenberg continued
his interests in cosmic-ray showers with considerations
on multiple production of mesons. He published
three papers in 1949, two in 1952, and one
in 1955.
On 9 March 1949, the Deutsche Forschungsrat
(German Research Council) was established
by the Max-Planck Gesellschaft (MPG, Max Planck
Society, successor organization to the Kaiser-Wilhelm
Gesellschaft). Heisenberg was appointed president
of the Deutsche Forschungsrat. In 1951, the
organization was fused with the Notgemeinschaft
der Deutschen Wissenschaft (NG, Emergency
Association of German Science) and that same
year renamed the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG, German Research Foundation). With the
merger, Heisenberg was appointed to the presidium.
In 1952, Heisenberg served as the chairman
of the Commission for Atomic Physics of the
DFG. Also that year, he headed the German
delegation to the European Council for Nuclear
Research.
In 1953, Heisenberg was appointed president
of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung by
Konrad Adenauer. Heisenberg served until 1975.
Also, from 1953, Heisenberg's theoretical
work concentrated on the unified field theory
of elementary particles.
In late 1955 to early 1956, Heisenberg gave
the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University,
in Scotland, on the intellectual history of
physics. The lectures were later published
as Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution
in Modern Science.
During 1956 and 1957, Heisenberg was the chairman
of the Arbeitskreis Kernphysik (Nuclear Physics
Working Group) of the Fachkommission II "Forschung
und Nachwuchs" (Commission II "Research and
Growth") of the Deutschen Atomkommission (DAtK,
German Atomic Energy Commission). Other members
of the Nuclear Physics Working Group in both
1956 and 1957 were: Walther Bothe, Hans Kopfermann
(vice-chairman), Fritz Bopp, Wolfgang Gentner,
Otto Haxel, Willibald Jentschke, Heinz Maier-Liebnitz,
Josef Mattauch, Wolfgang Riezler, Wilhelm
Walcher and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker.
Wolfgang Paul was also a member of the group
during 1957.
In 1957, Heisenberg was a signatory of the
manifesto of the Göttinger Achtzehn (Göttingen
Eighteen).
From 1957, Heisenberg was interested in plasma
physics and the process of nuclear fusion.
He also collaborated with the International
Institute of Atomic Physics in Geneva. He
was a member of the Institute's Scientific
Policy Committee, and for several years was
the Committee's chairman.
In 1973, Heisenberg gave a lecture at Harvard
University on the historical development of
the concepts of quantum theory.
On 24 March 1973, Heisenberg gave a speech
before the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, accepting
the Romano Guardini Prize. An English translation
of its title is "Scientific and Religious
Truth." And its stated goal was "In what follows,
then, we shall first of all deal with the
unassailability and value of scientific truth,
and then with the much wider field of religion,
of which – so far as the Christian religion
is concerned – Guardini himself has so persuasively
written; finally – and this will be the
hardest part to formulate – we shall speak
of the relationship of the two truths." A
more detailed insight into Heisenberg's view
on religion has been discussed by Wilfried
Schröder in "Natural science and religion"
(Bremen 1999, Science edition) and Wilfried
Schröder "Naturerkenntnis und Religion" (Bremen,
science edition 2008).
Personal life
In January 1937 Heisenberg met Elisabeth Schumacher
(1914-1998) at a private music recital. Elisabeth
was the daughter of a well-known Berlin economics
professor. They were married on 29 April.
Fraternal twins Maria and Wolfgang were born
in January 1938, whereupon Wolfgang Pauli
congratulated Heisenberg on his "pair creation" –
a word play on a process from elementary particle
physics, pair production. They had five more
children over the next 12 years: Barbara,
Christine, Jochen, Martin and Verena. Jochen
became a physics professor at the University
of New Hampshire.
Heisenberg enjoyed classical music and was
an accomplished pianist.
On his religious views, Heisenberg was raised
and lived as a Lutheran Christian, publishing
and giving several talks reconciling science
with his faith.
In his speech Scientific and Religious Truth
(1974) while accepting the Romano Guardini
Prize, Heisenberg affirmed:
“In the history of science, ever since the
famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly
been claimed that scientific truth cannot
be reconciled with the religious interpretation
of the world. Although I am now convinced
that scientific truth is unassailable in its
own field, I have never found it possible
to dismiss the content of religious thinking
as simply part of an outmoded phase in the
consciousness of mankind, a part we shall
have to give up from now on. Thus in the course
of my life I have repeatedly been compelled
to ponder on the relationship of these two
regions of thought, for I have never been
able to doubt the reality of that to which
they point.” (Heisenberg 1974, 213)
“Where no guiding ideals are left to point
the way, the scale of values disappears and
with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings,
and at the end can lie only negation and despair.
Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics,
and ethics the presupposition of life.”
(Heisenberg 1974, 219).
“The first gulp from the glass of natural
sciences will turn you into an atheist, but
at the bottom of the glass God is waiting
for you.” -W.Heisenberg
In his autobiographical article in the journal
Truth, Henry Margenau (Professor Emeritus
of Physics and Natural Philosophy at Yale
University) pointed out: “I have said nothing
about the years between 1936 and 1950. There
were, however, a few experiences I cannot
forget. One was my first meeting with Heisenberg,
who came to America soon after the end of
the Second World War. Our conversation was
intimate and he impressed me by his deep religious
conviction. He was a true Christian in every
sense of that word.”
Heisenberg also enjoyed mountaineering. In
his autobiography, he included photographs
from this activity.
Heisenberg died of cancer of the kidneys and
gall bladder at his home, on 1 February 1976.
The next evening, his colleagues and friends
walked in remembrance from the Institute of
Physics to his home and each put a candle
near the front door. He is buried at Munich
Waldfriedhof.
Honors and awards
Heisenberg was awarded a number of honors:
Honorary doctorates from the University of
Bruxelles, the Technological University of
Karlsruhe, and the University of Budapest.
Order of Merit of Bavaria
Romano Guardini Prize
Grand Cross for Federal Service with Star
Knight of the Order of Merit (Civil Class)
Fellow of the Royal Society of London
Member of the Academies of Sciences of Göttingen,
Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Sweden, Romania,
Norway, Spain, The Netherlands, Rome (Pontifical),
the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
(Halle), the Accademia dei Lincei (Rome),
and the American Academy of Sciences.
1932–Nobel Prize in Physics "for the creation
of quantum mechanics, the application of which
has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the
allotropic forms of hydrogen".
1933–Max-Planck-Medaille of the Deutsche
Physikalische Gesellschaft
Research Reports in Nuclear Physics
The following reports were published in Kernphysikalische
Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear
Physics), an internal publication of the German
Uranverein. The reports were classified Top
Secret, they had very limited distribution,
and the authors were not allowed to keep copies.
The reports were confiscated under the Allied
Operation Alsos and sent to the United States
Atomic Energy Commission for evaluation. In
1971, the reports were declassified and returned
to Germany. The reports are available at the
Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the
American Institute of Physics.
Robert Döpel, K. Döpel, and Werner Heisenberg
Bestimmung der Diffusionslänge thermischer
Neutronen in Präparat 38 G-22 (5 December
1940)
Robert Döpel, K. Döpel, and Werner Heisenberg
Bestimmung der Diffusionslänge thermischer
Neutronen in schwerem Wasser G-23 (7 August
1940)
Werner Heisenberg Die Möglichkeit der technischer
Energiegewinnung aus der Uranspaltung G-39
(6 December 1939)
Werner Heisenberg Bericht über die Möglichkeit
technischer Energiegewinnung aus der Uranspaltung
(II) G-40 (29 February 1940)
Robert Döpel, K. Döpel, and Werner Heisenberg
Versuche mit Schichtenanordnungen von D2O
und 38 G-75 (28 October 1941)
Werner Heisenberg Über die Möglichkeit der
Energieerzeugung mit Hilfe des Isotops 238
G-92 (1941)
Werner Heisenberg Bericht über Versuche mit
Schichtenanordnungen von Präparat 38 und
Paraffin am Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physik
in Berlin-Dahlem G-93 (May 1941)
Fritz Bopp, Erich Fischer, Werner Heisenberg,
Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and Karl Wirtz
Untersuchungen mit neuen Schichtenanordnungen
aus U-metall und Paraffin G-127 (March 1942)
Robert Döpel Bericht über Unfälle beim
Umgang mit Uranmetall G-135 (9 July 1942)
Werner Heisenberg Bemerkungen zu dem geplanten
halbtechnischen Versuch mit 1,5 to D2O und
3 to 38-Metall G-161 (31 July 1942)
Werner Heisenberg, Fritz Bopp, Erich Fischer,
Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and Karl Wirtz
Messungen an Schichtenanordnungen aus 38-Metall
und Paraffin G-162 (30 October 1942)
Robert Döpel, K. Döpel, and Werner Heisenberg
Der experimentelle Nachweis der effektiven
Neutronenvermehrung in einem Kugel-Schichten-System
aus D2O und Uran-Metall G-136 (July 1942)
Werner Heisenberg Die Energiegewinnung aus
der Atomkernspaltung G-217 (6 May 1943)
Fritz Bopp, Walther Bothe, Erich Fischer,
Erwin Fünfer, Werner Heisenberg, O. Ritter,
and Karl Wirtz Bericht über einen Versuch
mit 1.5 to D2O und U und 40 cm Kohlerückstreumantel
(B7) G-300 (3 January 1945)
Robert Döpel, K. Döpel, and Werner Heisenberg
Die Neutronenvermehrung in einem D2O-38-Metallschichtensystem
G-373 (March 1942)
Publications
Cassidy, David C. (2001). Werner Heisenberg :
A Bibliography of His Writings (2nd ed.).
Whittier. ISBN 1-57604-115-8.
Cassidy, David C. "Werner Heisenberg: A Bibliography
of His Writings, 1922–1929, Expanded Edition".
Mott & Peierls 1977
Ludovico, Anna (2001). Effetto Heisenberg.
La rivoluzione scientifica che ha cambiato
la storia. Roma: Armando. p. 224. ISBN 88-8358-182-2.
Blum, Barbara; Heisenberg, Helmut; Ludovico,
Anna (2006). Per Heisenberg. Roma: Aracne.
p. 96. ISBN 88-548-0636-6.
Sommerfeld, A.; Heisenberg, W. (1922). "Eine
Bemerkung über relativistische Röntgendubletts
und Linienschärfe". Z. Phys. 10: 393–8.
Bibcode:1922ZPhy...10..393S. doi:10.1007/BF01332582.
Sommerfeld, A.; Heisenberg, W. (1922). "Die
Intensität der Mehrfachlinien und ihrer Zeeman-Komponenten".
Z. Phys. 11: 131–154. doi:10.1007/BF01328408.
Born, M.; Heisenberg, W. (1923). "Über Phasenbeziehungen
bei den Bohrschen Modellen von Atomen und
Molekeln". Z. Phys. 14: 44–55. doi:10.1007/BF01340032.
Born, M.; Heisenberg, W. (1923). "Die Elektronenbahnen
im angeregten Heliumatom". Z. Phys. 16 (9):
229–243. doi:10.1002/andp.19243790902.
Born, M.; Heisenberg, W. (1924). "Zur Quantentheorie
der Molekeln". Ann. D. Physik 74 (4): 1–31.
doi:10.1002/andp.19243790902.
— (1924). "Über Stabilität und Turbulenz
von Flüssigkeitsströmmen (Diss.)". Ann.
Physik 74 (4): 577–627. Bibcode:1924AnP...379..577H.
doi:10.1002/andp.19243791502.
Born, M.; Heisenberg, W. (1924). "Über den
Einfluss der Deformierbarekit der Ionen auf
optische und chemische Konstanten. I". Z.
Phys. 23: 388–410. doi:10.1007/BF01327603.
— (1924). "Über eine Abänderung der formalin
Regeln der Quantentheorie beim Problem der
anomalen Zeeman-Effekte". Z. Phys. 26: 291–307.
doi:10.1007/BF01327336.
— (1925). "Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung
kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen".
Zeitschrift für Physik 33: 879–893. doi:10.1007/BF01328377. 
The paper was received on 29 July 1925. This
is the first paper in the famous trilogy which
launched the matrix mechanics formulation
of quantum mechanics.
Born, M.; Jordan, P. (1925). "Zur Quantenmechanik".
Zeitschrift für Physik 34: 858–888. doi:10.1007/BF01328531. 
The paper was received on 27 September 1925.
This is the second paper in the famous trilogy
which launched the matrix mechanics formulation
of quantum mechanics.
Born, M.; Heisenberg, W.; Jordan, P. (1925).
"Zur Quantenmechanik II". Zeitschrift für
Physik 35 (8–9): 557–615. Bibcode:1926ZPhy...35..557B.
doi:10.1007/BF01379806.  The paper was received
on 16 November 1925. This is the third paper
in the famous trilogy which launched the matrix
mechanics formulation of quantum mechanics.
— (1927). "Über den anschulichen Inhalt
der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik".
Z. Phys. 43 (3–4): 172–198. doi:10.1007/BF01397280.
— (1928). "Zur Theorie des Ferromagnetismus".
Z. Phys. 49 (9–10): 619–636. doi:10.1007/BF01328601.
—; Pauli, W. (1929). "Zur Quantentheorie
der Wellenfelder". Z. Phys. 56 (3–4): 1–61.
Bibcode:1930ZPhy...59..168H. doi:10.1007/BF01341423.
—; Pauli, W. (1930). "Zur Quantentheorie
der Wellenfelder. II". Z. Phys. 59 (3–4):
168–190. Bibcode:1930ZPhy...59..168H. doi:10.1007/BF01341423.
— (1932). "Über den Bau der Atomkerne.
I". Z. Phys. 77: 1–11. doi:10.1007/BF01342433.
— (1932). "Über den Bau der Atomkerne.
II". Z. Phys. 78 (3–4): 156–164. doi:10.1007/BF01337585.
— (1933). "Über den Bau der Atomkerne.
III". Z. Phys. 80 (9–10): 587–596. doi:10.1007/BF01335696.
— (1934). "Bemerkungen zur Diracschen Theorie
des Positrons". Zeitschrift für Physik 90
(3–4): 209–231. doi:10.1007/BF01333516. 
The author was cited as being at Leipzig.
The paper was received on 21 June 1934.
— (1936). "Über die 'Schauer' in der Kosmischen
Strahlung". Forsch. Fortscher. 12: 341–2.
—; Euler, H. (1936). "Folgerungen aus der
Diracschen Theorie des Positrons". Zeitschr.
Phys. 98 (11–12): 714–732. Bibcode:1936ZPhy...98..714H.
doi:10.1007/BF01343663.  The authors were
cited as being at Leipzig. The paper was received
on 22 December 1935. A translation of this
paper has been done by W. Korolevski and H.
Kleinert: arXiv:physics/0605038v1.
— (1936). "Zur Theorie der 'Schauer' in
der Höhenstrahlung". Z. Phys. 101 (9–10):
533–540. doi:10.1007/BF01349603.
W. Heisenberg Der Durchgang sehr energiereicher
Korpuskeln durch den Atomkern, Ber. Sächs,
Akad. Wiss. Volume 89, 369; Die Naturwissenschaften
Volume 25, 749–750 (1937)
— (1937). "Theoretische Untersuchungen zur
Ultrastrahlung". Verh. Stsch. Physical. Ges.
18: 50.
— (1938). "Die Absorption der durchdringenden
Komponente der Höhenstrahlung". Annalen der
Physik 425 (7): 594–9. Bibcode:1938AnP...425..594H.
doi:10.1002/andp.19384250705.
W. Heisenberg Der Durchgang sehr energiereicher
Korpuskeln durch den Atomkern, Nuovo Cimento
Volume 15, 31–34; Verh. Dtsch. physik. Ges.
Volume 19, 2 (1938)
— (1943). "Die beobachtbaren Grössen in
der Theorie der Elementarteilchen. I". Z.
Phys. 120 (7–10): 513–538. doi:10.1007/BF01329800.
— (1943). "Die beobachtbaren Grössen in
der Theorie der Elementarteilchen. II". Z.
Phys. 120 (11–12): 673–702. doi:10.1007/BF01336936.
— (1944). "Die beobachtbaren Grössen in
der Theorie der Elementarteilchen. III". Z.
Phys. 123: 93–112. doi:10.1007/BF01375146.
W. Heisenberg Zur Theorie der Supraleitung,
Forsch. Fortschr. Volumes 21/23, 243–244
(1947); Z. Naturf. Volume 2a, 185–201 (1947)
— (1948). "Das elektrodynamische Verhalten
der Supraleiter". Z. Naturf. 3a: 65–75.
von Laue, M.; Laue, W. (1948). "Das Barlowsche
Rad aus supraleitendem Material". Z. Phys.
124 (7–12): 514–8. Bibcode:1948ZPhy..124..514H.
doi:10.1007/BF01668888.
— (1948). "Zur statistischen Theorie der
Tubulenz". Z. Phys. 124 (7–12): 628–657.
doi:10.1007/BF01668899.
— (1948). "On the theory of statistical
and isotropic turbulence". Proceedings of
the Royal Society A 195 (1042): 402–6. doi:10.1098/rspa.1948.0127.
— (1948). "Bemerkungen um Turbulenzproblem".
Z. Naturf. 3a: 434–7.
— (1949). "Production of mesons showers".
Nature 164 (4158): 65–67. doi:10.1038/164065c0.
— (1949). "Die Erzeugung von Mesonen in
Vielfachprozessen". Nuovo Cimento 6 (Suppl):
493–7. doi:10.1007/BF02822044.
— (1949). "Über die Entstehung von Mesonen
in Vielfachprozessen". Z. Phys. 126 (6): 569–582.
doi:10.1007/BF01330108.
W. Heisenberg On the stability of laminar
flow, Proc. International Congress Mathematicians
Volume II, 292–296 (1950)
— (1952). "Bermerkungen zur Theorie der
Vielfacherzeugung von Mesonen". Die Naturwissenschaften
39 (3): 69. Bibcode:1952NW.....39...69H. doi:10.1007/BF00596818.
— (1952). "Mesonenerzeugung als Stosswellenproblem".
Z. Phys. 133: 65–79. Bibcode:1952ZPhy..133...65H.
doi:10.1007/BF01948683.
— (1955). "The production of mesons in very
high energy collisions". Nuovo Cimento 12
(Suppl): 96–103.
— (1975). "Development of concepts in the
history of quantum theory". American Journal
of Physics 43 (5): 389–394. Bibcode:1975AmJPh..43..389H.
doi:10.1119/1.9833.  The substance of this
article was presented by Heisenberg in a lecture
at Harvard University.
Books
— (1949). The physical principles of the
quantum theory. Translators Eckart, Carl;
Hoyt, F.C. Dover. ISBN 0486601137.
— (1955). Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik.
Rowohlts Enzyklopädie 8. Rowohlt.
— (1966). Philosophic Problems of Nuclear
Science. Fawcett.
Werner Heisenberg Physics and Beyond: Encounters
and Conversations (Harper & Row, 1971)
—; Busche, Jürgen (1979). Quantentheorie
und Philosophie: Vorlesungen und Aufsätze.
Reclam. ISBN 978-3-15-009948-3.
— (1979). Philosophical problems of quantum
physics. Ox Bow. ISBN 978-0-918024-14-5.
Werner Heisenberg Physik und Philosophie:
Weltperspektiven. (Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg.,
1988)
— (1989). Encounters with Einstein: And
Other Essays on People, Places, and Particles.
Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02433-2.
Werner Heisenberg and F. S. C. Northrop Physics
and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
(Great Minds Series) (Prometheus, 1999)
— (2002). Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche
im Umkreis der Atomphysik. Piper. ISBN 978-3-492-22297-6.
Heisenberg, Werner (1992). Rechenberg, Helmut,
ed. Deutsche und Jüdische Physik. Piper.
ISBN 978-3-492-11676-3.
Werner Heisenberg Physik und Philosophie (Hirzel,
2007)
— (2007). Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution
in 
Modern Science. Harper Perennial Modern Classics
(reprint ed.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-120919-2. 
(full text of 1958 version)
