Heisenberg’s first paper

JUL 01, 1978

How much traditional physics did the twenty‐year‐old student propose to sacrifice to explain the Zeeman splittings—integral quantum numbers, angular‐momentum conservation, radiation theory….?

DOI: 10.1063/1.2995102

David C. Cassidy

Werner Heisenberg had just celebrated his twentieth birthday when he presented his first paper for publication in 1921. This paper, a long and complex study entitled “On the Quantum Theory of Line Structure and of the Anomalous Zeeman Effects,” immediately placed its young author on the forefront of theoretical spectroscopy. “He understands everything,” Niels Bohr remarked. But, as often happens with brilliant first papers, its unique proposals were as controversial and perplexing as the phenomena they purported to explain. Figure 1 is a reproduction of part of the first page of this paper.

References

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2. A. Hermann, Werner Heisenberg 1901–1976 (trans, by Timothy Nevill), Inter Nationes, Bonn–Bad Godesberg (1976), page 19.
3. N. Bohr, in Uber die Quantentheorie der Linienspektren (trans, into German by Paul Hertz), Braunschweig (1923).
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5. Reference 2, page 12.
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13. Heisenberg to Landé, 26 October 1921 (SHQP 6, 2).
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20. Sommerfeld to Bohr, 25 March 1922 (BSC 7, 3).
21. Bohr to Landé, 3 March 1923 (SHQP 4, 1).
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D. Serwer, Hist. Stud. Phys. Sci. 8, 189 (1977).

More about the Authors

David C. Cassidy. University of Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany.