Heisenberg, Werner Karl 1901-76
German theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in W�rzburg, Bavaria, he was educated at the universities of Munich and G�ttingen, before becoming Professor of Physics at Leipzig University (1927-41). He then became professor at Berlin University and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (1941-45). From 1945 to 1958 he was director of the Max Planck Institute in G�ttingen, which later moved to Munich. In 1925 he reinterpreted classical mechanics with a matrix-based quantum mechanics where phenomena must be describable both in terms of wave theory and quanta. For this theory and its applications he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1932. In his revolutionary principle of indeterminacy or uncertainty principle (1927), he showed that there is a fundamental limit to the accuracy to which certain pairs of variables (such as position and momentum) can be determined. A consequence of the wave description of matter, the principle may be interpreted as a result of disturbance to a system due to the act of measuring it. In 1958, he and Wolfgang Pauli announced the formulation of a unified field theory, which if established would remove the indeterminacy principle and reinstate Albert Einstein.

Bibliography: David C Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (1992)