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Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg Books

Physicist

Gesammelte Werke

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“If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli's, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view. In reality however, behind this outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest even in those dark areas of reality of the human mind which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli's analyses of physical problems was admittedly due in some measure to the detailed and penetrating clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of creative processes, for which no rational formulation as yet exists.”

ReasonPhilosophyRealityScienceInterestCriticismSkepticismFascinationSkepticalRationalismScientificWolfgang PauliPauli
Book:Physics and philosophy: the revolution in modern science
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“Here the attention of the research workers is primarily directed to the problem of reconciling the claims of the special relativity theory with those of the quantum theory. The extraordinary advances made in this field by Dirac ... leave open the question whether it will be possible to satisfy the claims of the two theories without at the same time determining the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant.”

PhysicsRelativityQuantum TheoryFine Structure Constant
Book:Physics and philosophy: the revolution in modern science
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“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 an 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 though, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.”

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Author:Werner Heisenberg
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“Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different”

TwoDifferentSometimesMatterCharacterFormConceptsPropertyWaveObviousRemarkableRadiationParticlesDualityExhibits
Book:The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory
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“The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.”

KnowsMayHas BeensPhilosophyUseSpeakLanguageGivenUnderstandingResultsKnow HowDegreesPhysicsExperimentsSatisfiedMathematicalExplanationDescriptionInterpretationSchemesPhysicistCriteriaPlain Language
Author:Werner Heisenberg
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“Therefore, the two processes, that of science and that of art, are not very different. Both science and art form in the course of the centuries a human language by which we can speak about the more remote parts of reality, and the coherent sets of concepts as well as the different styles of art are different words or groups of words in this language.”

HumansWellsArtTwoDifferentRealityFormCoursesSpeakLanguageProcessGroupsCenturyStyleConceptsArt And ScienceDifferent StylesHuman Language
Author:Werner Heisenberg
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“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”

ThinkingIdeasMatterFactsFormLanguageModernObjectsOrdinaryDecidedFavorsPhysicsMathematicalSmallestUnitsPlatoModern Physics
Book:Natural law and the structure of matter
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“If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty - by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc. - to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.”

IfsThinkingHelpingFormFeltPreparedSimplicitySpreadGenuineMathematicalFeaturesEtcFrighteningWholenessHypothesisAxiomsReferring
Author:Werner Heisenberg
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