Werner Karl Heisenberg
WERNER KARL HEISENBERG  Macroknow Library
   

   
Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science.

". . . Bohr used to say . . . 'We may hope that it will later turn out that sometimes 2x2=5, for this would be of great advantage for our finances.'"1a

"Since the time of Galileo the fundamental method of natural science has been the experiment. This method made it possible to pass from general experience to specific experience, to single out characteristic events in nature from which its 'laws' could be studied more directly than from general experience."1b

"Actually the experiments have shown the complete mutability of matter. All the elementary particles can, at sufficiently high energies, be transmuted into other particles, or they can simply be created from kinetic energy and can be annihilated into energy . . . Therefore, we have here actually the final proof for the unity of matter. All the elementary particles are made of the same substance, which we may call energy or universal matter; they are just different forms in which matter can appear.
   If we compare this situation with the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, we can say that the matter of Aristotle, which is mere "potentia,"should be compared to our concept of energy, which gets into "actuality" by means of the form, when the elementary particle is created."
1c

". . . [I]n quantum theory the uncertainty relations put a definite limit on the accuracy with which positions and momenta, or time and energy, can be measured simultaneously . . . any theory which tries to fulfill the requirements of both special relativity and quantum theory will lead to mathematical inconsistencies, to divergencies in the region of very high energies and momenta."1d

". . . [S]cientific ideas will spread only because they are true."1e


     
   
Interesting Link
Werner Karl Heisenberg, Germany. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1932, "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen."
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1932/index.html
  

* Italics in the original.

1 Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976). Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. With an Introduction by F.S.C. Northrop. Werner Heisenberg, 1958. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999. (Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, 1958.)
a VIII. Criticism and Counterproposals to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, at 132.
b IX. Quantum Theory and the Structure of Matter, at 149.
c
Ibid., at 160.
d Ibid., at 162.
e The Role of Modern Physics in the Present Development of Human Thinking, at 194.

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