Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Pelican) - Softcover

Werner Heisenberg

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9780140228595: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Pelican)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140228594 ISBN 13: 9780140228595

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, 1989

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Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) is known for the development of quantum mechanics and the principle of indeterminancy. In physics and Philosophy he explains how modern advances in science alter, and often destroy, traditional ways only when the philosophical assumptions embedded in scientific method allow for modifications when new evidence emerges. Scientific advances alone do not change a culture when it is stripped of the new knowlage that accompanies the new science.

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About the Author

Werner Karl Heisenberg was born in Wrzburg, Germany, on Decmeber 5, 1901. After recieving his doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Munich in 1923, he traveled to Gttingen to study under Max Born and from there traveled to Copenhagen to work with Niels Bohr. Heisenberg became famous for his uncertainty (or indeterminacy) principle, published in 1927, according to which behavior of subatomic particles can be predicted only on the basis of probability. The effect of this principle was to turn the laws of physics into statements about relative, not absolute, certainties. For his work on quantum mechanics, Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932.

From 1927 to 1941 Heisenberg taught theoretical physics, at the University of Leipzig. During World War II he joined with Otto Hahn at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin to develop a nuclear reactor. Heisenberg secretly opposed the Nazis, however, and worked to prevent Germany from developing and deploying nuclear weapons. Following the war he was made director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Berlin. Werner Heisenberg died in Munich on February 1, 1976.

Review

“A giant of modern physics.” (New York Times)

“Philosophically, the implications of quantum mechanics are psychedelic. . . . [a] mind-expanding discovery.” (Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul)

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