Talk:Werner Heisenberg/Archive 1

Why the deletion of the Nishina paragraph?
If somebody disagreed with my expansion of that para, it would have been better to trim whatever bothered him/her than to blow it away completely. Would someone please restore it with whatever changes seem best? Jim Tour 20:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I deleted it as it mentions above in the talk page. This article is supposed to be about the physicist Werner Heisenberg but more than half of the material is about the war years and almost none is given to his achievements in physics.  A lot of contributors have put in a lot of material about the German bomb program, which is interesting and certainly some should be included but it is not the overwhelming focus of Heisenberg's life.  Material about the Japanese bomb program is definitely wide of the mark.  Perhaps German nuclear energy project would be a more appropriate place for that discussion?  --Richard Clegg 12:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that we should probably shuttle most of the wartime work questions to the German bomb program article (since we already have an entire article on it), and really try to expand on both his earlier work and life as well as his postwar work and life. --Fastfission 15:54, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Racist beliefs
About the bit added by Jim Tour:
 *  The racist beliefs of the Nazis may have, in this case, caused them to automatically dismiss an Asiatic's intellectual work when in direct conflict with that of an "Aryan"

I am not sure about that; perhaps that would be true for de Nazi's, but not for Heisenberg. Again, just like that discussion with Bohr we are just guessing, we don't know what really happened. For some reason or another the project was not given the priority needed for it to succeed; most likely because Germany at that point in time didn't have enough uranium and other resources, and the Nazi leadership in Berlin decided to give a higher priority to Wernher von Braun's V-2 project, and to the development of jet fighters. JdH 08:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello JdH. "Germany at that point in time didn't have enough uranium" only if you use Heisenberg's incorrect calculations involving amount of uranium needed for critical mass. The Manhattan Project's test bombs, as well as the two actual bombs dropped on Japan, combined used a small fraction of the uranium the German's had in hand.. Of course, the Germans were operating under the belief they didn't have enough... About the racist beliefs and their effect on programs, I can't agree with you that we are simply guessing. My additions today were not "original research" but pretty close paraphrases of statements made by respected historians. I hope to return in a few days with citations... These historians themselves don't claim certainty in statements like this. But they do furnish evidence that elevates the matter quite a ways above simple guessing. Jim Tour 08:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Whether this is true or not, this is an article about Heisenberg. I know that Nazis and bombs are fascinating but we are talking about just a few years in the life of one of the most important physicists there is.  This article is already over-burdened with the war years.  In some ways those are the most fascinating years of his life but this article is not the place to speculate over Nazi racism and the possible influence of the Japanese bomb program.  --Richard Clegg 10:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Perhaps those two subjects (the Bohr-Heisenberg meeting of 1941, and the Nazi atomic bomb program) deserve separate articles, if such articles do not exist already? JdH 14:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * There is German nuclear energy project already. Perhaps the material could go there? --Richard Clegg 14:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Jim -- they didn't have enough enriched uranium, and they hadn't developed pile technology to the point where they could breed plutonium. Having raw uranium ore gets you nowhere if you can't turn it into fissile material. And of course it is because of the bad calculations (and perhaps other things) that led them to not vigorously pursue enrichment technologies. --Fastfission 15:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That remark about 'not enough uranium' was based on a sentence found on Michael Thorwart's website about the B8 experiment at Haigerloch: "The ratio of measurement with to the measurement without uranium and the heavy water is called the multiplication factor. It came to about seven. By this, the reactor didn't become critical. Further calculations showed that a functioning nuclear reactor would have had to be about 1.5 times the size of this reactor. However, expanding the reactor was no longer possible in April 1945 due to the lack of both heavy water and additional quantities of uranium blocks."
 * See also the DOE website "When Germany surrendered in May 1945, its atomic researchers were still struggling to reach critical mass with a pile". According to that website that failure had to do with design: they mistakenly ruled out graphite as a possible moderator, and used heavy water instead. JdH 22:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hair color?
I know this is odd, but what hair color was he? I couldn't tell from the b&w picture.--RNAi 06:22, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * He is depicted as blond or blondish in some of the popular literature; I don't think that I've ever seen a color photograph of him from his lifetime. Rlquall 13:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Basic biography? Where is it?
Where is a basic bio (place/date of birth, parents names/occupation, schooling, married/not married? children etc.)? There's a bit at the bottom under Misc. about his parents, but isn't the first entry usually a persons overall bio? That would seem to be standard in this kind of entry. Jeremy Bender 07:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)Jeremy Bender

Most of this info is in fact in the Misc. section. I have just added (from the German Wiki article) the occupation of his father and also of the one son mentioned in Wiki. Perhaps all this basic bio should be at the beginning; why don't you move the information to where you think it should go? -Dirac66-


 * Uh, but where are the last thirty years of his life? Surely he must have spent them somewhere doing something, right?  (One thing he did is sign the Mainau Declaration, but I'm sure he must've done more.  Where is it?  KSchutte 02:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

...Revealed the atomic bomb program's existence to Bohr?
In the main text it says somewhere that "Heisenberg revealed the atomic bomb program's existence to Bohr at a conference in Copenhagen in September 1941." I don't believe for a second that Heisenberg revealed that to Bohr; after all Bohr was a foreigner, and believe me: revealing a state-secret like that to a foreigner could have landed Heisenberg before a firing squad. I am still puzzled about what really was discussed during that mysterious meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr (which btw was not at a conference, but in a private meeting outside). One thing seems certain, and that is that Heisenberg tried to convince Bohr that Nazism was the lesser of two evils compared to communism, and that collaboration with the nazi's might be the best option; he seems to have mentioned something similar to that to Casimir during a wartime visit to Holland. That alone may have upset Bohr sufficiently to break off his friendship with Heisenberg; Casimir was not pleased by it either. What else? Perhaps Heisenberg hinted at the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction (just a month before his team had discovered that fission produces excess neutrons), and may have suggested that scientists at the two sides of the fence should not go down that garden path. Heisenberg seemed to have been genuinely concerned that the Allies might use it against Germany. But all of that is conjecture; it is not certain. If somebody can clear this up I would appreciate it; else I may do it myself, but not now since I am too uncertain about what really transpired. JdH 10:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * As the text below it states, exactly what was said and revealed is somewhat unknown and very contested, so a line like that shouldn't be there anyway. The text further down from that goes over the historical controversy fairly carefully. --Fastfission 14:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * We don't know what really transpired, and from Bohr's and Heisenberg's accounts, it seems that neither of them were entirely sure about what the thrust of their conversations was actually about, either. It seems to have been a verbal dance of half-hints and allusions and possible misunderstandings, where each side may not have completely appreciated what the other was trying to say. Since they were on different sides, "plain speaking" wasn't an option. Heisenberg may have been trying to drop hints to Bohr about the state of the Nazi research programme (without going so far as to commit treason), or he may have been hoping that Bohr might let slip some useful information himself. Bohr may have been uncertain whether Heisenberg was trying to tell him something, or trying to pump him for information.
 * Frayn's stage play, Copenhagen makes good use of the heavy irony that the two men's work on uncertainty and the impossibility of making exact measurements on a system was mirrored in the thick fog of uncertainty enveloping this meeting, where each was probably trying desperately hard to measure the other's political and technical position, without giving away too much about their own (with neither of them seeming to get anywhere). We will probably never know exactly what happened, and, as a point of principle, we may have to resign ourselves to the idea that it might be theoretically impossible for us ever to be sure what really went down. After all, H and B didn't seem to be able to get to the bottom of things afterwards, and they had the unfair advantage, over us, that they were both there! ErkDemon 17:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Why...?
I cant really see why the vast majority of this article resolves about his role in development of nuclear bombs. During these years one will hardly find any known physicist NOT involved in these programs. He just happened to work for the obvious wrong side. Anyway he was one of the most influental scientists ever and this article just does not fit. 82.83.248.60 22:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * About him working for the wrong side: you can't blame a person for being a patriot. I don't believe that he actually agreed with the Nazi agenda. However him being a German could have caused him to work for his country's side in the war, even if he didn't have any particular love for it's ruling milieu. I don't think he should be condemned for that. --Nushoin 12:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Post-war history
OK obviously his role in WWII is critical to his biography. I'm not sure if we're over-emphasizing the debate. You could just as easily cut the section down to a third its size and say "evidence remains vague and inconclusive about Heisenberg's support or hinderance of the nazi nuclear program".

However, what I'm wondering is why we don't have anything on his life for the 25 years following the war. What did he do? Where did he work? What contributions (if any) did he make to science? How did he die? The war stuff is important, but I think the article is getting swallowed up by it.

Wellspring 15:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Wry
An anonymous editor commented out the wisecrack about Heisenberg's loyalty vs his competence ("one can know either Heisenberg's morality in this respect, or his competence, but not both"), asking that it be attributed. Some rummaging turned up a 1999 post to Usenet, which I'm pretty sure is what I was thinking of. "(I)f you know how practical Heisenberg was, you can't know how loyal he was" (in a context where "practical" refers to his skill at leading a nuclear-weapons project, and "loyal" refers to the possibility that he was deliberately sabotaging the Nazis). Good enough? DS 13:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Um, well it's not a very notable thing if just one person on usenet said it. But I believe something like this might have been said in Frayn's Copenhagen as well, but I could be wrong. --Fastfission 16:00, 5 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Who cares? It's damn funny, it's probably been said by numerous people, and it's quotable. By it not being in the article yet talking about it we create even more attention about it, and one way or another, it becomes a quotable statement. I don't see any problem with having it in there, if not for the sheer comedic value. Unless any of you hardcore Wikipedians want to attack it as POV too. --24.130.46.188 06:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * See our policy on citing sources. --Fastfission 17:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

REligous Beliefs was heisenberg a lutheran yes or or no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.199.245.118 (talk) 03:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

General Questions
The date of 1938 for nuclear fission does not tally with the page on nuclear fission. Consulting Richard Rhodes' "The History of Atomic Bomb" it seems that either date could reasonably be claimed. I have changed the date to be in line with the fission page at 1939. --Richard Clegg 20:27, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is a classic case of trying to figure out what "discovery" means. Doesn't matter too much for the purposes employed here (just to note that it occured on the eve of the second World War and that Germans were involved with it, hence setting up the whole impetus for the Manhattan Project). --Fastfission 22:57, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Didn't Heisenberg travel to India and stay with Narayana Guru before coming back to Germany to propound the Uncertainty Principle? He is supposed to have been a Sanskrit scholar, like Schrodinger, and therefore deeply interested in Vedanta. How come there is no mention of this?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.39.64 (talk) 03:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there really is an english book with the title "The Part and The Whole" ? --Fmrauch (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Revisions made based on the 3 questions
I am appreicative for the feedback from Dirac66 and have addressed the three questions by revising the appropriate text. I have added further text and citations on Heisenberg's papers on positrons, corrected the years between 1939 and 1945, and added text and a Wikiling on Heisenberg's children. Many thanks.

Bfiene (talk) 16:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Heisenberg's matrix mechanics
Heisenberg's first formulation included sum rules which he did not recognise as being matrices because he knew nothing about them. Torricelli01 (talk) 11:16, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Plutonium bomb
It seems to me that this article is not as clear as it should be on the possibility that Heisenberg could have believed (with consistency) that a uranium bomb was impractical but that a plutonium bomb, using fuel created by a reactor like the one he was working on, might indeed be possible in time to decide the war. I would make the edits myself, but I'd rather it was done with someone familiar with more of the source material.--SarahLawrence Scott 05:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I second your idea, the fact must be mentioned here as well. It is mentioned in the article of von Weizsäcker. To my recollection, it was the latter who proposed the idea in 1940, and then rediscovered by Hautermans a year later, who claims to have worryingly contacted Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker on the matter, to be be told somethink along the lines "congratulations, you are the third person in Germany who knows this is possible". I suggest to summarize in 1 sentence: Both von Weizsäcker an Hautermans, have realized in 1940, resp. 1941 the possiblity of producing nuclear weapons not directly from uranium, but by intermediately creating plutonium, however together with Heisenberg decided not to pursue this line of thought before the end of war. And give precise citation(s). What do you think?:Dc76 22:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Heisenberg did not believe that a bomb of thi skind was possible. Torricelli01 (talk) 11:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Technical Confusion
I rewrote a chunk of the article, the part that deals with the calculations that Heisenberg preformed before the 1925 miracle paper. I only skimmed the original articles by Kramers and Heisenberg (and a long time ago at that), so I might have made some misstatements. But the text that was there before was definitely wrong.

The original text stated that Heisenberg calculated the anharmonic oscillator spectrum in two ways, the first way by virtual oscillators (which I took to mean by Kramers/Heisenberg transition coefficients--- by matrices) and the second by perturbations (which in this case I took to mean that he quantized the deformed classical system). I don't know whether the quantization of the deformed system was done by differentiating the old quantum condition, which would have led to correct results, by the spectral sum rules that he used (which I think are equivalent to the differentiation business), or by old quantum theory (which I think is unlikely).

But the old text included this statement, which is flat out wrong: In the virtual oscillator method the transition from one level, e.g. n, to another level, e.g., n-2, was represented by a double series of virtual transitions going from n to an intermediate state and from the intermediate state to n-2. To preserve the proper order of virtual transitions Heisenberg had to insist on a novel mathematical rule for the transition coefficients, a: a1(n, n-1) a1(n-1,n-2) ≠ a1(n-1, n-2) a1(n, n-1).

This is an attempt to explain the non-commutativity of Heisenberg's matrices, but the noncommutativity is not in the product of a1(n,n-1) a1(n-1,n-2). Those are matrix elements, just numbers, and their product is independent of order. The noncommutativity happens when you sum over all the possible intermediate states: so that the sum over k of a1(n,k)a2(k,n-1) is not the same as the sum over all intermediate states of a2(n,k)a1(k,n-1). When a1 and a2 are the same matrix, as in the example, the two orders happen to be complex conjugates of each other.Likebox (talk) 19:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarity
Have moved parents to earlier section for the sake of clarity in both sections...parents/personal life? One very complex article with an enormous amount of work and talent involved - please do not interpret my seemingly bold gesture as anything other than a small attempt to address the tip of the ice-berg. Although, I would like to help out a little more on the article as the potential latent within it could be drawn out and ultimately result in a superb and integrated entry.Ernstblumberg (talk) 07:25, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Flourescence
In the section on Heisenberg Kramers right before Matrix mechanics, there's a description of the virtual state model which preceded the full blown matrix description. I put in a thing that says that it couldn't be based on Bohr orbits because the spectroscopic frequencies don't match the orbit frequencies, which are integer multiples of 1/T. But this is from Heisenberg's later reasoning. This has nothing to do with flourescence. They must have quantized the radiation field by Bohr-Sommerfeld methods to a certain extent to get flourescence.

I think that in this early paper, the original reasoning is that the combined radiation+atom system needed to be quantized, and that the quantum law for the combined system could be thought of as including virtual excitations/deexcitations when expressed in terms of the sub-parts of the atom and radiation separately. This is out of line with Bohr orbits idea because the orbits by themselves are no longer the stationary states, the orbits+radiation states are the stationary states. So the sentence that says "because the frequencies were not multiples of 1/T" probably should go (although it is true, and later was seen to be fundamental, it is probably more trivial than what they were saying in that paper, which, unfortunately, I haven't read).Likebox (talk) 01:38, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Internal links and syntax
If you have never used this tool before, I recommend it: http://can-we-link-it.nickj.org/. You just type (or copy) the name of an article in the box, and Nick rummages through your article, to end up by suggesting many different internal links which you might have overlooked. Most of them are good; some are not (you have to check). Nick won't make any suggestions until the syntax of your article is correct: Usually bad syntax is caused by stray brackets or apostrophes in the copy. Nick provides you with a list of the bad apples, but then you have to seek them out. A fairly easy way is to copy the text into a word processor and then search for the stray marks there. I did this with the Werner Heisenberg article, which took a fair amount of time, but it is now clean, and I was able to insert quite a few new internal links. (The new links are indicated here.) Of course one must be cautious in doing so and not engage in linking just for the sake of linking. I hope this has been helpful. Again, I recommend using Nick's very valuable tool. Yours sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sleep
Heisenberg may have slept here.--Filll 16:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Then again, he might not. It is uncertain 208.125.137.194 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC).

Overall Structure
This article is somewhat of a mess. It contains long digressions on topics like the Uranium Club that barely mention Heisenberg, and several times mentions something in, say, 1939, then shoots back to 1936, then up to 1938, then backwards again. Someone who knows Heisenberg's biography well, should sort this out, and I think several of the sub-sections should really be separate articles. GeneCallahan (talk) 16:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree (and had come to this conclusion independently of GeneCallahan's suggestion) that the Uranium Club section, and the following one on ALSO, contain too much detail that does not directly concern Heisenberg. Large portions of the Uranium club discussion is taken directly from another Wikipedia topic ("Uranverein"), verbatim; I am not sure what the policy on this is but it seems like a link to the Uranverein article would be more appropriate. I am not a historian or biographer, so would not undertake work on this myself, but it would improve the article greatly to rewrite these portions of it, focusing on Heisenberg. MorphismOfDoom (talk) 10:17, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Major revision by Bfiene - congratulations + 3 minor questions
I congratulate Bfiene on his excellent major revision of the article. This clearly represents much reading and much work on his part, and Wikipedia now has a much more coherent and balanced survey of Heisenberg's life and work.

After reading the new text, I do have 3 minor questions for Bfiene:

Positron
"In mid-1933, he presented his theory of the positron". This is surprising, since the article on the positron says (and I have always understood) that Paul Dirac published the theory of the positron in 1928. Since the positron is essentially equivalent to the electron except for its charge, I don't see what Heisenberg could have added in 1933 which applied only to the positron and not to the electron. Could you quote here what the reference cited (Cassidy) actually says about Heisenberg and the positron?

Goudsmit
"In 1939 ... Heisenberg visited Goudsmit ... Heisenberg would not see Goudsmit again until 16 years later, when Goudsmit was the chief scientific advisor to the American Operation Alsos at the close of World War II" Should that be 6 years later, or is there another error?

Personal
Is there a reason for deleting much of the information in the former Family section? Many Wiki biographical articles do present information such as his father's name and career, and the names of at least those children who have their own Wiki articles, in this case his son Martin. Dirac66 (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Who came up with the statement (referring to the autobiography) that there are mountains in Dronten, the Netherlands? Please refer to Google Maps. Dronten is a 50 year old town on land that was still a lake during WW2 (reclaimed after) and is as flat as a pancake! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prudentia (talk • contribs) 06:01, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Uncertainty principle
Is Uncertainty principle a definition of the robotic impossibility to be equal in intelligence with an human intelligence but also an animal intelligence ? User: Olivier Goetz, theologian alias oliverdyson. Friday 12.10.2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.0.100 (talk) 15:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

"Les ouvriers penchés soucieux de faire tout le plaisir possible au machines vous écœurent" Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Utilisateur: VARIO Friday 26.10.2012.

Yes, delete red links for non-notable students
Today eight red links were removed from the list of doctoral students in the infobox by one editor and then restored by another. WP:Redlink says (in the 3rd paragraph) that Articles should not have red links to topics that are not likely to have an article, so I think the question we should consider is whether all these students are notable enough to have their own articles in the foreseeable future. The fact that someone studied under Heisenberg is not sufficient for notability, unless he/she discovered something important either during their doctorate or later. My preference would be to remove 7 of these 8 red links until some editor explains (perhaps on the talk page) why each student is notable. The only one I would retain is Şerban Ţiţeica, because the infobox shows that we do have articles on him in 3 other languages which can be translated. Dirac66 (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Breaking Bad Reference
In the show Breaking Bad, the main character adopts "Heisenberg" as a pseudonym. I'm almost certain this is a reference to Werner Heisenberg, but I can't find a source confirming it. The best I could find is a L.A. Times article which claims it is "surley" referencing the physicist. Can anyone confirm this? If so, do you think it's worth a mention in the article. I think so, given the popularity of the show. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Bernice (talk • contribs) 23:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Um... no? Why would a hip young phresh show like Breaking Bad need to reference some [WWII-era German]? 101.160.163.244 (talk) 04:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed the link to Breaking Bad and it was reverted. I'll try to explain my position. It may be relevant to Breaking Bad for a character to be named after Heisenberg, but it is irrelevant to Werner Heisenberg, the Physicist. I actually find it demeaning that such a high quality article for a prominent and important historical person is linking to a TV show. Werner did not participate in the show (unlike Stephen Hawking and the Simpsons). Only fans of the show would disagree. 70.88.250.45 (talk) 21:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC) Good God, Wikipedia is full of itself. -everyone that doesn't moderate Wikipedia75.86.156.129 (talk) 04:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Many, many Wiki articles have "references in culture" sections. Sometimes it is literature, sometimes films, sometimes television. I know who this scientist is because I learned who he was because of his work. However, his name was adopted by a very prominent character in one of the most well known pieces of american television ever because that character was a scientist and chose a scientist's name as his nom de plume. From now on, many people will learn of Heisenberg for the first time, not due to his work, but because they heard of his name on a tv show and were curious why the main character selected that name. It is similar to Guy Fawkes.I had heard of the name "Guy Fawkes" before, but until I heard it in the movie, "V for Vendetta", I never cared enough to learn more about who he was. Now, in part because of that movie, masks modeled after that character are how people know of Mr. Fawkes and are significant parts of political movements. For good or bad, Breaking Bad has introduced some of the masses to Mr. Heisenberg and the reference deserves a section in this article, as do other cultural references to this great scientist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.131.230.72 (talk) 09:00, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

It's already hard enough to look for information on Heisenberg without getting hits from that damn show. We don't need to contaminate the man's Wikipedia entry with it, too. 157.139.9.155 (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * We don't need to contaminate the man's Wikipedia entry with it, too.

Good grief.

Pooh pooh pop culture all you want but pop culture is (for good or bad) how a lot of people learn things. I'm not saying there should be a "Breaking Bad" section. And I'm also not saying there should be a paragraph. Just a sentence is enough.

Yeah, I admit it. I don't understand quantum mechanics.

Why don't I add a sentence? I'm not interested in drama. And it would irk me if some elitist edited it out (Weeks? Days? Or even hours?) after I added it.

I'm not jumping into the breach. Somebody braver than me can do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AllThatJazz2012 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with AllThatJazz2012 (talk • contribs). I understand both sides. I feel the same way when I listen to Jump Into the Fire from the Nilsson Schmilsson album and all they can comment on is Goodfellas. But then I think about these poor kids that would have grown up without ever hearing that bass line and I cut them some slack had it not been for that film. I would have never looked up this article and many of the links on physics had it not been for BB. From there I've followed up on many things because I'm curious. I'm not brilliant, but I know more now than I did before. I think the latest popular culture item that was removed was poorly written and I believe there was a reason that that name was chosen for the show. I'm going to do some research on that and provide the references. If you have an issue with it, please bring it here and let's discuss. -- G e n e b 1 9 5 5  Talk 11:35, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * also note, "A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day... section on February 23, 2013 and February 23, 2014." Each of these events occurred roughly 6 months after the Say My Name and Felina (series finale) episodes ... coincidence? -- G e n e b 1 9 5 5  Talk 12:02, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Whether you like it or not, 90 % of all visitors will come to this page because of BB - so there should be some information on it in the article. Otherwise, wikipedia fails as a general encyclopedia. On a different note: There is a prestigious Heisenberg Scholarship in Germany: http://www.dfg.de/foerderung/programme/einzelfoerderung/heisenberg/

Pop Culture References
I suggest that this whole section is not relevant to this article and should deleted. It is just trivia. Anyone disagree? -- Bduke   (Discussion)  03:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

2015 March 31 - I disagree, but only slighty. I think someone (who writes better than myself) should mention that the American TV series "Breaking Bad" main character Walter White's alias "Hiesenberg" is named for this man. There is even a Hiesenberg song. (I suppose the link from the Breaking Bad entry to this page is good enough.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.201.72.232 (talk) 10:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

was he a jew
was heisenberg a jew. the current page doesnt make it clear about his believes. it just says that he was accused of being a white jew by nazi's?nids 21:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No, he was not a Jew. By "white Jew" the Nazis mean, "an Aryan who acts like a Jew" or something like that—it was meant as a slur. --Fastfission 00:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

@ Nidishsinghal: Let me guess - you picked this up at "Hipster Hitler"...didn`t you ? ;-) Heisenberg was neither Jewish, nor did anyone call him a "White Jew". The concept of "Whiteness" doesn`t make any sense in a Central European context. In German-speaking countries "Whiteness" is commonly misunderstood as relating to skin colour. Catholic Palatians and Bavarians who emigrated to the United States in the 18th and 19th century were often dumbfounded to find out that unlike their Protestant fellow-countrymen from Lower Saxony or other parts of North Germany they were not considered white in the United States. On the other hand, even the most hardened NS antisemites didn`t bother with the question whether Jews were "white". Of course they were. 99 % of Hitler`s victims were white. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.37.27.79 (talk) 20:16, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

"Earnesta" is not a german name ???
A german native speaker, I was quite puzzled over the Name "Earnesta", which I never heard, so I did a bit of googling. I could find several english references to "Kaspar Earnesta August Heisenberg", but none in german.

I did find a genealogical site, where his name is given as "Ernst August Heisenberg":

> http://de.rodovid.org/wk/Person:81778

but I do not know how reliable it is.

There are several facsimiles of the titles of acedemic works of August Heisenberg available, such as this:

> http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0008/bsb00084404/images/

In them, his name is just given as "August Heisenberg".

Therefore, I would suggest that you just change the name to "August Heisenberg", as "Kaspar Earnesta" is most likely wrong! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.177.162.27 (talk) 19:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * This is sourced to Cassidy 1992, which unfortunately Google has not yet scanned. Maybe someone with access to the book can check on this, or find another source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 20:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * There are about thirty hits if you google specifically for german language sites with "Kaspar Earnesta", however virtually all of them are actually in english and somehow vary the theme "He was born in Würzburg as the son of Kaspar earnest ..". I suspect they are all based on the same erroneous source in english literature. On this site, you will find a facsimile of Werner Heisenbergs Certificate of Birth ("Geburts-Schein"), where the name of his father is also given only as "Dr. August Heisenberg":

> https://www.archiv.uni-leipzig.de/heisenberg/herkunft__familie__studium/Lebenslauf/lebenslauf.htm


 * I am not sure if this link will work, but on the german amazon.de-site, you can peek into Cassidy's "Beyond Uncertainty", ISBN-13: 978-1934137130:

> http://www.amazon.de/gp/reader/1934137138/ref=sr_1_9?p=S00D&keywords=ernst+august&ie=UTF8&qid=1456265110


 * where it says on page 12: "Werners father, Kaspar Ernst August Heisenberg, was born in Osnabrück ...". So if "Earnesta" was a mistake, Cassidy seems to have fixed it in this 2009 edition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.177.162.27 (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thank you. I will fix this. The birth certificate is a primary source but Cassidy 2009 will do. I suspect this was a typo or vandalism at some point in the past. Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, vandalism. The Revision history search tool leads to this edit on 2010 Oct.25, by 38.96.15.210 who just changed Ernst to Earnesta with no reason given. So there is no reason to take it seriously, even if it has been in the article for 5+ years. Thanks to 77.177.162.27 for noticing this. Dirac66 (talk) 23:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Werner Heisenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20090305082134/http://www.kmf-net.de/files/muenchen/Maerz2005.pdf to http://www.kmf-net.de/files/muenchen/Maerz2005.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 15:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Adding a footnote. Help request. Newbie.
Hello Heisenberg fans.

I spent today, 4/1/2015 in research at Stanford (see link below) where I came upon the referenced document.

I believe it is worthy of addition to this Wiki, but am stumped in regard to the mechanics of adding a footnote. How does the number fall into the proper sequence and how do all the following footnotes go +1?

If someone would take me under their wing, I may be contacted at stevewaclo@yahoo.com

I have a photocopy of the referenced document, with Hitler's signature.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf300002fn/entire_text/

Box/Folder 3 : 6 Heisenberg, Werner, 1943 October 15

Scope and Contents note

Certificate signed by Adolf Hitler awarding Heisenberg the 1st class cross for war service.

Stevewaclo (talk) 04:07, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The footnote numbering is automatic. Just add the footnote in the source code where you want it to go, and the system will place it in sequence and adjust the numbers of the following footnotes. As for the required format of the footnote, I suggest checking the source code for examples - each footnote starts with a . (but without the nowiki's which deactivate the code between them; I include them here so that the system will not look for a reference from my code.) Hope this helps. Dirac66 (talk) 21:20, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

just a little hint towards some trouble concerning the oral exam: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199801/heisenberg.cfm?platform=hootsuite — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.159.202.176 (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

== The mechanical pinwheel calculator, said to be the favorite of WKH, by the vendor in on-line catalog, Odhner (Sweden), c1958-1970 now both on sale in the Deutsche Optik Catalog...Not until after death of WKH were the first electronic calculators available ==

in the mid-1970s, with LED displays (red)... 9V...

//// — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.192.29.96 (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Werner Heisenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090123165907/http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Chem-History/Frisch-Fission-1939.html to http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Chem-History/Frisch-Fission-1939.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:06, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Don't Understand "However"
In the Deutsche Physik Movement section is the sentence "The most influential of the three, however, was Johannes Juilfs." (Juilfs is one of three SS investigators of Heisenberg.) I don't understand the use of "however". Juilfs is in contrast to what? SDCHS (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * A revision history search shows that paragraph was added in July 2008 by editor BFiene who has been inactive since 2013 and therefore difficult to ask. It seems to be in contrast to the previous sentence "Heisenberg had participated in the doctoral examination of one of them at the Universität Leipzig", meaning perhaps that he participated in the doctoral exam of (another?) one but Juilfs was the most influential. In any case the meaning of "however" is not very clear and doesn't really add anything, so I will just remove it. Dirac66 (talk) 23:20, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

This is a Long Article
I came to this article wanting to learn a bit about Heisenberg. It comes close to being an article about anything having to do with the atom in the first 75 years of the 20th Century. Admittedly, Heisenberg played a role in much (most?) of this. Still, couldn't a lot of this content be off in separate articles, which could then be referenced as Heisenberg's role is discussed? (Not volunteering. This would be a significant effort, probably thankless.) SDCHS (talk) 19:36, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Werner Heisenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130318084241/http://www.armscontrol.de/dokumente/goettingen-eng.pdf to http://www.armscontrol.de/dokumente/goettingen-eng.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 10:04, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Werner Heisenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091018190406/http://www.physik.tu-berlin.de/~dschm/lect/heislek/html/pfadfinder.html to http://www.physik.tu-berlin.de/~dschm/lect/heislek/html/pfadfinder.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090305082138/http://www.bdp-foerder-nord.de/Der%20Bundschuh%202.%20Quartal.pdf to http://www.bdp-foerder-nord.de/Der%20Bundschuh%202.%20Quartal.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080615112426/http://www.stanford.edu/~njenkins/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php?pid=I662&ged=auden-bicknell.ged to http://www.stanford.edu/~njenkins/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php?pid=I662&ged=auden-bicknell.ged
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v50/i9/p26_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v48/i8/p32_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v53/i7/p34_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v53/i7/p28_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v54/i4/p14_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v48/i8/p27_s1
 * Added tag to http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v43/i1/p52_s1

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:58, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Does the superposition of time and space guarantee the uncertain nature of the universe?
Does the superposition of time and space guarantee the uncertain nature of the universe... The question brings a proposal for interpretation on the little-understood phenomena. The time dimension of the Antmateria is inverse to this dimension. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Majorado (talk • contribs) 14:40, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Homosexuality?
The Norwegian tv series “Kampen om tungtvannet” portrays Heisenberg as being potentially homosexual. I could not find any sources on this. Maybe someone among the editors would know something? Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:04, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this may be true. Some television shows often have made-up information of real people (see Fate/Grand Order for example) to blend with the storyline. Try googling "“Kampen om tungtvannet” on Google. I think he might be. User:WernerHFan

In his biography of W. Heisenberg, Cassidy says that when there was an investigation from the nazi authorities about Heisenberg ( he had been called a "white jew", etc...), it was noted that he had married quite late and they tried to accuse him of homosexuality. No proof was provided. User:Chezkele

Nobel Prize Nomination
I have spotted a possible issue and wish to consult other editors before editing a sentence. The following is stated: "In 1928, Albert Einstein nominated Heisenberg, Born, and Jordan for the Nobel Prize in Physics,[41]" I have not access to the source stating that Einstein nominated Heisenberg, Born, and Jordan but according to the archives maintained by the Nobel Foundation Einstein did not submit that nomination. Since the statement does not match official records, is it ok to change it? Is a source tied to the Nobel Foundation considered ok? The archives are public, available on https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/redirector/?redir=archive/. According to this source Einstein nominated Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger for the Physics prize 1932. GhideonSe (talk) 19:50, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2022
Under In Popular Culture category, add: In Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6, Episode 12 “Ship in a Bottle,” Captain Picard convinces Moriarty that he and Regina can be beamed into the real world by “uncoupling the Heisenberg compensators.” The term is used as code for the holodeck simulation to, in fact, beam them into a portable holodeck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_in_a_Bottle_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) ElleTee7 (talk) 18:09, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ◢  Ganbaruby!   (talk) 09:25, 12 December 2022 (UTC)