Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and it is time
Speaker 1: for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode is titled
Speaker 1: Say My Name. It published originally on September two, thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing this one's about Heisenberg. That's right. I'm going
Speaker 1: purely by the title here. I have not gone back
Speaker 1: to listen to this episode. I'm going to experience this
Speaker 1: again with you guys. Obviously not for the first time.
Speaker 1: I was there in but dude, I can't remember last Tuesday.
Speaker 1: So let's sit back and listen to this classic episode.
Speaker 1: Werner Heisenberg. Right, I'm just not sure about this topic. Heisenberg, Right, okay,
Speaker 1: wall I think I have some notes on him too,
Speaker 1: are you? This is he was born on December five,
Speaker 1: nineteen o one. Yes, that one, the physicist. Yes, the
Speaker 1: famous theoretical physicist. All right, well, all right, maybe I
Speaker 1: won't get a geek out about breaking bad, but that's fine.
Speaker 1: We can talk about Vernon Heisenberg. I like that your
Speaker 1: German pronunciation is better than the lady with the last
Speaker 1: name vocal bomb. That's pretty that's pretty great. Um So
Speaker 1: born on December five, nineteen o one, in Verzberg. Uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, Heisenberg has played an incredibly important role in
Speaker 1: the establishment that that's the foundations of what is quantum mechanics. Right.
Speaker 1: If you've heard of something something called the uncertainty principle,
Speaker 1: that is a k A. Heisenberg's u certain new principle,
Speaker 1: that that is, he is the operative Heisenberg. In this
Speaker 1: we will we will explain what that uncertainty principle is
Speaker 1: in certain terms, but that will be towards the second
Speaker 1: half of the podcast. First we wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: talk about who he was, sort of his background. His
Speaker 1: father was an expert in Middle and modern Greek languages.
Speaker 1: That's a Dr. August Heisenberg. His mother was any wink Lin.
Speaker 1: Winklin wink Lin was w there's no W sound in German.
Speaker 1: It's um, yeah, so vs or fs and and w
Speaker 1: s or vs. That's easy to remember, simple, all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, he he um. It's funny because I understand
Speaker 1: that his his own background in Greek. His father was
Speaker 1: an expert in Greek. His own background in Greek meant
Speaker 1: that when they got to the point where physicists were
Speaker 1: starting to name theoretical and he would correct people's use
Speaker 1: of Greek, saying things like, you cannot spell it this
Speaker 1: way because that's not how it would be actually spelled
Speaker 1: if such a thing existed in the Greek language. So
Speaker 1: so he was, um, you know, helping us stay on
Speaker 1: the rails as far as the use of Greek, right
Speaker 1: while he was growing up. When he was twelve, that
Speaker 1: is when Neil's Bore presents did his general theory of
Speaker 1: of quantum existence. Yes, so Bore would be incredibly important
Speaker 1: during Heisenberg's education. But Niels Bore also known for making
Speaker 1: the Bore model of the atom. So that was the
Speaker 1: model the atom that suggested that you had a central
Speaker 1: nucleus and then electrons that were orbiting nucleus. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's you know, anyone who's taken any any class in
Speaker 1: chemistry or physics has seen the Boor model. It's still
Speaker 1: one of those things that um usually is. It's part
Speaker 1: of the history of the development of particle physics and
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics. Right. We we know now that it's a
Speaker 1: little bit um simplified Yeah. In fact, Heisenberg would go
Speaker 1: on to be the one who right exactly right, Uh,
Speaker 1: he was. While he was in high school, there was
Speaker 1: a major event that played out across the entire world
Speaker 1: and particularly in Europe. World War One. Yeah, World War
Speaker 1: One happened between nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen. So of
Speaker 1: Heisenberg's academic contemporaries, or not even contemporaries, some of his
Speaker 1: mentors had actually served in World War One, various officers
Speaker 1: in the military, right right. Um, Heisenberg himself had to
Speaker 1: leave school, leave high school to go help harvest crops
Speaker 1: in Bavaria at the time. And um, by by the
Speaker 1: time he got back after the war, he was deeply
Speaker 1: involved in youth groups like the New Boy Scouts. That
Speaker 1: we're trying to rebuild the science and artistic culture in Germany. Right,
Speaker 1: So keep in mind, like at this time in Germany,
Speaker 1: things are really tumultuous. I mean, World War One was
Speaker 1: already one of those events that that played upon certain
Speaker 1: sentiments in Germany, and after the war was concluded, that
Speaker 1: got even more messy because you had the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, uh, you know, trying to deal with this
Speaker 1: situation and make sure that it could not happen again.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was one of those wars that no
Speaker 1: one really expected whatever happened. But as the idea was
Speaker 1: that everyone would be building up their armies to a
Speaker 1: point that anyone would be crazy to attack anyone else.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, humans are crazy, y'all. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we it was. It was one of those things where
Speaker 1: where as in an attempt to prevent this from happening again,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of reparations demanded against Germany. This
Speaker 1: in turn ended up fueling a lot of resentment in
Speaker 1: Germany and would eventually give the Nazi movement sort of
Speaker 1: the kind of foothold. Yeah exactly, It gave them that
Speaker 1: that that place to build some support, because you had
Speaker 1: all these Germans who felt that that their lives had
Speaker 1: been ruined as a result of the actions that followed
Speaker 1: World War One. Now that plays a big role in
Speaker 1: Heisenberg's life because this is also a time when physicists
Speaker 1: are making incredible discoveries. We are learning more about the
Speaker 1: quantum world, that that atomic scale world than ever before.
Speaker 1: The instruments that were being made were becoming precise enough
Speaker 1: for us to look at things on a level that
Speaker 1: we never could have seen before. So there is a
Speaker 1: figurative explosion in physics at this time and a lot
Speaker 1: of and sometimes literal explosions. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: physicists that were active at this time, particularly in Germany,
Speaker 1: were of Jewish descent. Now, of course that would cause
Speaker 1: play another important role once we talk about the rise
Speaker 1: of the Nazi movement and the entry into World War two.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's going to to really shake things up. But
Speaker 1: before we get to that point, we talk more a
Speaker 1: little about about Heisenberg's educational background. Once World War One
Speaker 1: had concluded, he attended the Maximilian School at Munich and
Speaker 1: then eventually the University of Munich. He originally went to
Speaker 1: study math, but according to reports, a professor wouldn't let
Speaker 1: him into an advanced seminar, and that's when he switched
Speaker 1: to physics. And just imagine what the world would be
Speaker 1: like without that, I mean, quantum physics, for example, might
Speaker 1: have a very different approach, particularly when you start talking
Speaker 1: about people like Schrodinger, and we will and maybe we'll
Speaker 1: even mention his cat so uh. At the university, he
Speaker 1: studied physics with professors like Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, who
Speaker 1: was a theoretical physicist. Uh he was a physicist who
Speaker 1: would stay on teaching even during World War Two, so
Speaker 1: he stayed in Germany and continued to teach. He did
Speaker 1: get a little upset that the well more than a
Speaker 1: little upset that his departments were being completely yet purged
Speaker 1: of anyone who had any sort of Jewish background, whether
Speaker 1: they self identified as Jewish or if they had maybe
Speaker 1: an ancestor the three generations back who was Jewish. Sure. Also,
Speaker 1: according to some reports, the Nazis considered the theoretical physics
Speaker 1: as a field to be Jewish. Yes, yes, because there
Speaker 1: were there were so many Jewish inkers who were the
Speaker 1: leaders of theoretical physics that the Nazis looked down upon
Speaker 1: the entire discipline as being something that was impure and
Speaker 1: should be completely purged. And in fact, instead they wanted
Speaker 1: to have Deutsche physique that's German physics as a study
Speaker 1: as opposed to theoretical physics, so that would also disrupt
Speaker 1: the advances that could have happened during that time. Another
Speaker 1: professor was Wilhelm Karl Ferner Otto Fritz Franvien, you're just
Speaker 1: enjoying saying these names, aren't you? Will Helm Vien is
Speaker 1: usually how we we say that, but yes, you're The
Speaker 1: answer to that question is yes, I love. I love
Speaker 1: saying German names. Uh. He was a physicist and he
Speaker 1: focused on black body radiation and electromagnetics magnetism rather and
Speaker 1: he passed away in n So he died before World
Speaker 1: War two began. He died before the Nazis had really
Speaker 1: taken control of Germany. Um there was Alfred Pringsheim who
Speaker 1: was a professor of mathematics and had Jewish roots. During
Speaker 1: the Nazi regime, he would see his entire fortune taken
Speaker 1: from him. Everything he had inherited a huge fortune and
Speaker 1: everything he owned was taken by the Nazis. He was
Speaker 1: eventually forced to change his name to Alfred Israel Prinsheim
Speaker 1: because of his Jewish ancestry. One wonderfully racists, you know,
Speaker 1: the Nazis were not known for being subtle with the
Speaker 1: way that they treated any one of Jewish heritage. And
Speaker 1: then a fourth professor was Arthur Rosenthal, who had a
Speaker 1: focus on geometry as well as dynamical systems, also had
Speaker 1: Jewish roots. He would be forced from his position in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six by the Nazis and would eventually immigrate
Speaker 1: to the United States and nineteen nine and taught at
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan, which has come up a lot
Speaker 1: in our conversations recently because that's where Sid went to.
Speaker 1: But he taught at the University of Michigan, then eventually
Speaker 1: taught at the University of New Mexico and then later
Speaker 1: at Purdue University. So these were the four professors who
Speaker 1: really kind of sparked Heisenberg's fascination with physics and mathematics,
Speaker 1: and this is founding in in those subjects exactly, so Somerfeld, Veen, Pringsheim,
Speaker 1: and Rosenthal Uh. Then in nineteen two Heisenberg went to
Speaker 1: Goodingen Goodingen as a University of Goodingen to study physics
Speaker 1: under some more famous physicists, including Max Bourne, whose focus
Speaker 1: was on quantum mechanics, particularly in statistical interpretation of the
Speaker 1: wave functioned which we will talk about again and a
Speaker 1: little bit because Schrodinger was definitely a wave functioned guy.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Heisenberg was different. He did not
Speaker 1: really look at the wave function of quantum physics. He
Speaker 1: was looking at something else. And now I'll explain that
Speaker 1: when we get there, because that's fun for me. UM.
Speaker 1: The born Max Boorne was also the director of theoretical
Speaker 1: physics at the university and was Jewish, so he immigrated
Speaker 1: to the United Kingdom when the Nazis came into power
Speaker 1: in Germany and could tinued to research particle physics, well
Speaker 1: well not quite particle physics, quantum physics and theoretical physics,
Speaker 1: as well as teaching in the UK. Then you had
Speaker 1: James Frank who was a physicistant, studied atomic and subatomic collisions,
Speaker 1: particularly electrons colliding with adams, and also was of Jewish heritage.
Speaker 1: So he would leave Germany in nineteen thirty three for
Speaker 1: the United States and would later participate in what was
Speaker 1: known as the Manhattan Project. We could do a full
Speaker 1: episode on the Manhattan Project that in fact, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an amazing story. UM. And here's another great story with
Speaker 1: James Frank. So he won the Nobel Prize in n
Speaker 1: for physics. He left the gold medal, the Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: medal back in Germany when he left to essentially flee
Speaker 1: to the United States. Um. There was another physicist named
Speaker 1: George de Heavasy, and I know I'm saying that name wrong,
Speaker 1: So I greatly apologize, but for once, we're talking about
Speaker 1: someone who's not German, so I can't say his name.
Speaker 1: But he he in order to protect this gold medal
Speaker 1: from being taken by the Nazis and melted down, he
Speaker 1: dissolved the metal and acid and then put the solution
Speaker 1: on a shelf, so it's a solution with dissolved gold
Speaker 1: on the shelf. World War two is over, he goes back,
Speaker 1: the solution is still on the shelf. He then precipitates
Speaker 1: that solution, precipitateing the gold out of the acid, and
Speaker 1: he used the gold to melt it back into the
Speaker 1: metal and meant a new and meant a new metal
Speaker 1: so that they can give it uh back to James Frank.
Speaker 1: So that I thought was a really cool story. Then
Speaker 1: there's another professor he studied under was David Hilbert, was
Speaker 1: a mathematician who focused on geometry and functional analysis, who
Speaker 1: retired in n So he lived to see the Nazis
Speaker 1: purge Germany of Jewish mathematicians and physicists, and was later
Speaker 1: asked at a state dinner. He was actually asked a
Speaker 1: question about what was the state of mathematics after it
Speaker 1: had been quote unquote free of Jewish influence, and his
Speaker 1: response was, there's no study of mathematics anymore. He was
Speaker 1: essentially saying that the actions of the Nazis had effectively
Speaker 1: into the entire field because they had they had removed
Speaker 1: or or had caused to flee all of the leading
Speaker 1: thinkers and instead, including like Einstein. So they were turning
Speaker 1: mathematics and science into a political thing, and by doing that,
Speaker 1: they were saying that these other things that did not
Speaker 1: fit that political regime as invalid. And that's not the
Speaker 1: way science works, not the way mathematics works, but that's
Speaker 1: how we're demanding. It can be a very effective means
Speaker 1: of controlling a population by controlling their education. Sure, but
Speaker 1: also it also ends up meaning that you really you,
Speaker 1: you just throw a huge monkey wrench into any kind
Speaker 1: of advancement in those fields. So before World War two,
Speaker 1: this is this is all happening before World War two,
Speaker 1: and Heisenberg is studying under these different professors, so during
Speaker 1: these years he has the ability to really pursue his
Speaker 1: interests in theoretical physics and mathematics. So, uh, this was
Speaker 1: on the in the nineteen twenties so and so was
Speaker 1: before even the Third Wreck was coming into power at all. Right, right,
Speaker 1: so that these are in the years between World War
Speaker 1: One and the Nazis rise to power. So during those years,
Speaker 1: that's when Heisenberg was studying. And while many of his
Speaker 1: professors would end up having to flee or would be
Speaker 1: removed from their jobs, at this time none of that
Speaker 1: was necessarily evident that that was going to happen. So
Speaker 1: he spent his time really talking with some of the
Speaker 1: leading thinkers of the day when it comes to theoretical
Speaker 1: physics and mathematics, right, um so Ine he earned his
Speaker 1: PhD from the University of Munich and um went to
Speaker 1: become an assistant to his old professor Maxi Born at
Speaker 1: the University of getting In and so in he would
Speaker 1: go to the University of Copenhagen and begin work with
Speaker 1: Niels Henrik David Bore, who was Danish, not German, but
Speaker 1: a Danish physicist and uh and of course he was
Speaker 1: really interested in atomic radiation and atomic structure, and we
Speaker 1: talked about the Boor model of the atom earlier in
Speaker 1: the podcast um So. In nineteen six Heisenberg would go
Speaker 1: to the University of Copenhagen for about a year and
Speaker 1: then leave. But in ninety six there was a position
Speaker 1: opening opening up at the University of Copenhagen for a
Speaker 1: lecturer in theoretical physics. So Boor recommended Heisenberg, thinking that
Speaker 1: Heisenberg was an up and coming leader in this space,
Speaker 1: and so Heisenberg became the lecturer and theoretical physics at
Speaker 1: the University of Copenhagen. Bore himself would be at Copenhagen
Speaker 1: for quite some time until nineteen forty three, where he
Speaker 1: would eventually flee to Sweden to escape the Nazis. Nineteen five,
Speaker 1: that's when Heisenberg publishes his theory of quantum mechanics. So
Speaker 1: he was of the ripe old age of twin d
Speaker 1: three years old, twenty three years old, and he is, uh,
Speaker 1: he is he is presenting a completely um well, he's
Speaker 1: presenting his own, his own perspective on what quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: actually is. As we'll see, that ends up getting kind
Speaker 1: of assimilated into a unified view by looking at some
Speaker 1: some other theories that Heisenberg did not necessarily agree with
Speaker 1: at the time. Nope, not so much at all. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, physicists, like any other type of human being,
Speaker 1: can occasionally get very married to specific ideas and maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit snarky. Yeah, there's some there's some great
Speaker 1: quotes that we'll be reading. Yeah, but yeah, it turns
Speaker 1: out that not everybody agreed on the behavior of particles
Speaker 1: at that level because they were first of all, there
Speaker 1: was no way to really directly observe them, so it's
Speaker 1: all hypothetical, and it was mostly things like your equations
Speaker 1: are are not as easy to understand my equations, therefore
Speaker 1: my equations are better. That kind of thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: that really is one of the arguments. So in n seven,
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty six, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: definitely hitting that that middle age there for physicists. Twenty
Speaker 1: six years old, he becomes the professor of theoretical physics
Speaker 1: at the University of Leipsig, and this made him the
Speaker 1: youngest full professor in Germany at the time. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he was certainly making a name for himself in the
Speaker 1: in the academic world. In nineteen nine, he goes on
Speaker 1: a lecture tour of the United States and Japan and India,
Speaker 1: uh and in nineteen thirty two he receives the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize in Physics for his discovery of the allotropic forms
Speaker 1: of hydrogen. It was is for from that paper that
Speaker 1: he had published about quantum mechanics. Out of that one
Speaker 1: of the applications was this discovery. Right. So, in case
Speaker 1: you're wondering what the heck is an allotrope, it's a
Speaker 1: different structural modification of an element. So let's take carbon.
Speaker 1: Carbon is a great example. When you have a certain
Speaker 1: structure of carbon, it forms graphite. Different structure of carbon
Speaker 1: forms diamond too, slightly different substances. Yeah, these these different
Speaker 1: these different manifestations of the same element. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's the exact same element. It's just the way that
Speaker 1: it's been or the way that it arranges itself determines
Speaker 1: its qualities. And graphite and diamond are like nine day
Speaker 1: they're incredibly different. So that's what an allotrope is is
Speaker 1: these different manifestations of an element that have very different qualities.
Speaker 1: With the case of hydrogen, we're talking about ortho hydrogen
Speaker 1: and parahydrogen. Don't ask me what that actually means because
Speaker 1: I'm not a physicist or a chemist, so I am
Speaker 1: incapable of answering me, neither I am. I'm at a
Speaker 1: loss there, but I do know that in ninety seven
Speaker 1: Heisenberg married Elizabeth Schumacher, who he would go on to
Speaker 1: have seven children with over the course of their marriage. Wow.
Speaker 1: Now this is also the time when we're starting to
Speaker 1: see the Nazis come into power in World War two
Speaker 1: is beginning, and this was This becomes a pretty muddy
Speaker 1: area of Heisenberg's life because it's hard to know which
Speaker 1: historical records are the most accurate. Right, There's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of contention within the historical community about um, what
Speaker 1: exactly Heisenberg's personal views and um and roles were. In
Speaker 1: all of this, he had become the target of of
Speaker 1: Johannes's Stark n I'm just entering apologize with our English.
Speaker 1: Our English pronunciation in German pronunciation are different and and
Speaker 1: to be fair, the vocal downside of my family is
Speaker 1: is really more like Polish Russian. So Johannes Stark was
Speaker 1: also a physicist, but he was and he was a
Speaker 1: physicist in fact, who in his UH in the twenties
Speaker 1: had published a paper by Einstein. He had actually the
Speaker 1: um UH solicited Einstein to write a paper for the
Speaker 1: publication that he was editing, and it was a publication
Speaker 1: that would eventually lead Einstein to ruminate upon the general
Speaker 1: theory of relativity. It was sort of a kind of
Speaker 1: a precursor to his general theory, which meant that in
Speaker 1: a way, Johannes Stark was very much part of what
Speaker 1: made Einstein a worldwide phenomenon. Now, the reason why I
Speaker 1: say that's really interesting, or perhaps he might even say ironic,
Speaker 1: is that Johannes Stark would align himself with the Nazi regime.
Speaker 1: He wanted essentially to be the fewer of physics, which
Speaker 1: is that's I mean, that's exactly the way I saw
Speaker 1: it worded when I was reading the biography, which is
Speaker 1: kind of terrifying. But he he also aligned himself with
Speaker 1: the Deutsche Physics movement, the the German physics movement, and
Speaker 1: he said that because Heisenberg continued to teach Einstein's theories
Speaker 1: and classroom in Einstein's theories, of course we're not part
Speaker 1: of this Deutsche physics, uh movement. That he was what
Speaker 1: what Stark would call a white Jew or an arian Jew,
Speaker 1: someone who is not Jewish by heritage but is by
Speaker 1: association because he continues to teach these thoughts that Jewish
Speaker 1: mathematicians and physicists had come up with, so that somehow
Speaker 1: that meant that he was a traitor. Yes, so um
Speaker 1: So Stark was very much opposed to Heisenberg and didn't
Speaker 1: feel that Heisenberg should should have any sort of position
Speaker 1: of authority. That did not stop Heisenberg from having that position.
Speaker 1: He was obviously very important to the university and was
Speaker 1: one of the few protected. Of course, part of it
Speaker 1: was that he did not actually have any Jewish ancestry
Speaker 1: that anyone could determine, so that kept him somewhat safe,
Speaker 1: right sure, um you know, there's part of the debate
Speaker 1: about Heisenberg is whether or not he um he stayed
Speaker 1: in order to uh to help preserve Germany's scientific and
Speaker 1: cultural communities, or whether he was actually working for the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party. Um. He was made the director of the
Speaker 1: German Adam Bomb project and spent about five years working
Speaker 1: on that, supposedly, during which another portion of the debate
Speaker 1: is whether he was working towards a nuclear reactor or
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, and no one is really entirely sure. Supposedly
Speaker 1: he gave a report to Nazi official Albert Spear um
Speaker 1: that as of one or so, it would take three
Speaker 1: or four years for them to build a nuclear weapon,
Speaker 1: and that that is part of why the Nazi Party said,
Speaker 1: I'll forget this nuclear weapon thing, let's go with nuclear
Speaker 1: reactors to help drive sure. Um and uh so, but
Speaker 1: but you know, that's that's there's been other research um
Speaker 1: for for example, one Paul Lawrence Rose wrote an entire
Speaker 1: book called Heisenberg and the Nazi Coomic Bomb Project that
Speaker 1: stated that, uh, Heisenberg wasn't being evasive to the Nazi Party,
Speaker 1: that rather he was being truthful due to a basic
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of the way that nuclear fission worked, and that
Speaker 1: by the time he figured it out, it was when
Speaker 1: the war was already winding down and he started to
Speaker 1: hear about the atrocities that the Nazi Party had committed
Speaker 1: and kind of reactively recreated this image of himself as
Speaker 1: as having been an anti Nazi the entire time. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that it's it's impossible for us
Speaker 1: to say one way or the other because there are
Speaker 1: conflicting reports and and really it's you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's a it's a difficult thing. Again. Once again, we
Speaker 1: take our our our podcasting hats off to our sister
Speaker 1: podcast stuff he missed in history class that deals with
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff all the time. Oh sure, and
Speaker 1: and especially you know, everything surrounding the Nazi Party is
Speaker 1: incredibly sticky. Um. You know, some of my favorite favorite
Speaker 1: stories about that time or stuff like like like like
Speaker 1: Lenie Reefinstahl, who was one of the who was the
Speaker 1: propagandist or a documentary filmmaker for the Nazi Party, And
Speaker 1: I mean she she took tea with Hitler frequently and
Speaker 1: has claimed forever that she never knew about the atrocities
Speaker 1: that were going on. And so it's it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things like who do you believe? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, getting back into into the what Heisenberg was
Speaker 1: going through at this time. So there is there's an
Speaker 1: argument to be made that he was trying to preserve
Speaker 1: the scientific community in Germany as best he could, because
Speaker 1: there were others who were also trying to do that.
Speaker 1: Max Planck, for example, was also trying to um to
Speaker 1: do that. Although Plank had hoped that the the rise
Speaker 1: of the Nazis was just a temporary kind of kerfuffle
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't going to balloon into this incredible
Speaker 1: conflict that would span the entire globe. He just had
Speaker 1: no He had no concept of that actually happening. So
Speaker 1: he had to stay and to try and keep the
Speaker 1: German departments of mathematics and physics as intact as possible.
Speaker 1: So it could be that that's the case, We honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. In ninety one, Heisenberg becomes the professor of
Speaker 1: physics at the University of Berlin and the director of
Speaker 1: the kaiserville Helm Institute for Physics. And in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: five Heisenberg is taken prisoner by American troops and is
Speaker 1: sent to England. UH. He's freed in nineteen forty six
Speaker 1: and returns to Germany and helps rebuild the Institute for
Speaker 1: Physics at Guttingen and then UH that eventually becomes the
Speaker 1: Max Planck Institute for Physics, which would eventually relocate and
Speaker 1: I believe I believe Heisenberg personally renamed the institute them
Speaker 1: on Max Plunks. And he would continue to travel and
Speaker 1: give lectures about his work, in fact doing so almost
Speaker 1: right up to when he died. He died in on
Speaker 1: February one, nineteen seventy six after developing cancer, so he
Speaker 1: was very much active in the world of lectures and
Speaker 1: academia well after the end of World War Two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: towards the end of his life he became interested in
Speaker 1: plasma physics and a thermonuclear processes. So see, it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's certainly one of those interesting timelines. And
Speaker 1: in a moment, we're going to really dive into what
Speaker 1: his contributions were in the field of quantum mechanics and
Speaker 1: give a full explanation or as as full as we
Speaker 1: possibly can make it of what the uncertainty principle is
Speaker 1: all about, as well as why it's important in technology,
Speaker 1: because yes, this does have to do with tech. It's
Speaker 1: just going to take us a while to get there. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what's about to happen. You could
Speaker 1: say I'm uncertain, So let's take a quick break, all right,
Speaker 1: So now it's time to dive into quantum mechanics. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, I'm not really certain about this. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna keep making that joke excellent until it's funny. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. Heisenberg had worked in theoretical physics and quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics during the early early days of the discipline, and
Speaker 1: he was particularly interested in studying the radiation from an atom.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that he was also interested in
Speaker 1: seeing what was actually observable, you know, really look at
Speaker 1: the atom and see what you could actually see it
Speaker 1: because we had all these hypothetical particles in these theoretical particles,
Speaker 1: things that that should exist based upon the math involved.
Speaker 1: But but but the science at the time was based
Speaker 1: on on bombarding these these tiny, tiny, tiny sub atomic
Speaker 1: particles with um with things like gamma radiation and then
Speaker 1: observing what we could observe, right, And so he began
Speaker 1: to differentiate between what you could observe and what you
Speaker 1: could not, and then he started to notice things. He
Speaker 1: said that, you know, we can't really always assign a
Speaker 1: position in space to a specific electron at any given time,
Speaker 1: and we can't follow electrons around their orbits. It's it's
Speaker 1: not like a planetary orbit that we can watch continuously, right,
Speaker 1: It's more like there's an area that an electron could
Speaker 1: be in, as opposed to we can specifically point out
Speaker 1: that this is where the electron is at any given moment,
Speaker 1: or this is the direction it is traveling at any
Speaker 1: given moment, and this would start to plant the seed
Speaker 1: in his mind for the uncertainty principle. So first he
Speaker 1: said that you know, bores postulation that the the the
Speaker 1: orbits of electrons are around the nucleus was more or
Speaker 1: less correct. You couldn't actually be certain of what those
Speaker 1: orbits were because the unobservable nature of these electrons move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just no way to assign a figure to this.
Speaker 1: You can't say the electron is in uh, this particular
Speaker 1: quadrant around the nucleus UM and you couldn't talk about
Speaker 1: really the electron's velocity either. Velocity, by the way, is
Speaker 1: speed us direction, right, And so he started to say
Speaker 1: that instead of using um classic numbers, the kinds of
Speaker 1: numbers that we would use to describe human scale physics,
Speaker 1: that that we needed to use matrices. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: matrix is essentially an abstract mathematical structure. So this was
Speaker 1: almost like talking about probabilities. It's it's kind of fuzzy,
Speaker 1: it's not specific, it's not precise. And in fact, that
Speaker 1: was Heisenberg's argument, was that precision is something that you
Speaker 1: could strive for, but you were never ever going to
Speaker 1: get Uh, he kind of arrived at this gradually. So
Speaker 1: in ninety he was involved in a bit of a spat,
Speaker 1: a debate, if you will, about a theoretical spat actually
Speaker 1: was real spat about theory, but it was on. So
Speaker 1: you had two sides to this debate. You had Heisenberg
Speaker 1: and his his fellow physicists, who I thought of quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics in the term of these matrices, these this abstract
Speaker 1: mathematic way of describing the position or motion of an electron,
Speaker 1: because again he was arguing that you could not define
Speaker 1: it in a way that was like it's at x,
Speaker 1: y and z coordinates. You could not do that. I
Speaker 1: was using the matrix. And there was another set of
Speaker 1: scientists who were trying to describe some atomic particles as
Speaker 1: as waves the way that we would electromagnetic radiation, unlike
Speaker 1: or own Strodinger. Yeah, Schrodinger, Schrodinger, Yeah, he and his
Speaker 1: kitty cat. Actually Schroedinger and the cat story is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, just a little side notes. So you've probably
Speaker 1: heard of Schrodinger's cat, where Schrodinger was uh, kind of
Speaker 1: giving a thought experiment kind of thing to explain how
Speaker 1: how this this other form the matrix form of quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics is a little weird. The idea that you have
Speaker 1: a cat inside a box, and inside that box you
Speaker 1: also have a little canister with poisonous gas estenate, and
Speaker 1: there's some explosive that has a that that will go
Speaker 1: off at some point and I am giving a variation classic. So,
Speaker 1: so within half an hour there's a fifty chance that
Speaker 1: the explosive inside that canstor has gone off and released
Speaker 1: the poisonous gas and little killed the cat. Yes, kitty
Speaker 1: is no more one life down, eight to go. There's
Speaker 1: also a fifty percent chance that the that the explosion
Speaker 1: has not yet happened, and that Kitty is fine but
Speaker 1: possibly very bored inside this box. And so the thing
Speaker 1: is that because of uh, this this weird quantum effect,
Speaker 1: and keep in mind this is really something that only
Speaker 1: happens at the quantum level. When you get up to
Speaker 1: the macro level that we see this is not actually
Speaker 1: the case. But the idea is that the cat is
Speaker 1: both alive and dead at the same time, and superposition
Speaker 1: that has both states and superposition, and it's only when
Speaker 1: you open up the box and observe the cat that
Speaker 1: one of those two possibilities becomes true, becomes true, and
Speaker 1: the other one just becomes yeah, it goes away, and
Speaker 1: that then you have either the live cat or the
Speaker 1: dead cat, so that the cat is said to be
Speaker 1: alive and debt at the same time until you observe it,
Speaker 1: and that's when reality snaps into place and you suddenly
Speaker 1: get one of the two results. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of a way of saying like this is just, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. It's turned out to be one of
Speaker 1: those things we always refer to anyway. So Schroinger's cat
Speaker 1: and Heisenberg's and certainty principle both are trying to explain
Speaker 1: various weird things about the quantum level. There's another one
Speaker 1: that we can touch on also that gets confused with
Speaker 1: Heisenberg's and certainty principle, which is the idea that by
Speaker 1: observing something you actually affect the outcome. So in other words,
Speaker 1: when we're looking at sub atomic particles, simply shining light
Speaker 1: onto them affects their movement, because we're talking about photons
Speaker 1: impacting subatomic particles, which changes the pathway, which means just
Speaker 1: by taking an observation in a measurement, you have changed
Speaker 1: what has what was going to happen. So it makes
Speaker 1: it even more impossible to predict things based upon the
Speaker 1: behaviors of stuff, because just by observing it, you change
Speaker 1: what that outcome actually is. Now that's not heisenberg'sun certainty
Speaker 1: principle either, but it often gets confused. So we've got
Speaker 1: this debate. We've got the wave mechanics debate, and that's
Speaker 1: Schrodinger's side, and we've got the matrices debate, and that's
Speaker 1: Heisenberg's side. And the debate was not always civil. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was there. There was a quote that Heisenberg made
Speaker 1: to another physicist, Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, which was, the more
Speaker 1: I think about the physical portion of Schrodinger's theory, the
Speaker 1: more repulsive I find it. What Schrodinger writes about the visualizability. Visualizability, Boy,
Speaker 1: that's a hard word. Of his theory is probably not
Speaker 1: quite right. In other words, it's crap thick burn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a little that was a little rough. So
Speaker 1: here's what the difference was between these two. Stroutinger's approach
Speaker 1: require less complicated math to explain the relationship of a
Speaker 1: sub atomic particles movement and and and it's it's position
Speaker 1: around a nucleus example, an electron around the nucleus as
Speaker 1: an example, and it furthermore explained some of the things
Speaker 1: that Heisenberg's theory couldn't really fully explain. It's sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of pushed them under the rug in a way,
Speaker 1: because Heisenberg's approach showed that there were these little quantum
Speaker 1: jumps quantum leaps as if yes, exactly, there's quantum leaps
Speaker 1: when you cannot quite solve the problem, or you solve
Speaker 1: the problem and then you have to leap into the
Speaker 1: next body and hopefully your next leap is the one
Speaker 1: that takes you home. No, in this case, the quantum
Speaker 1: jumps were the fact that you would see electrons behave
Speaker 1: in a weird way, like suddenly an electron would behave
Speaker 1: as if it had a higher amount of energy than
Speaker 1: it normally would, and that was, you know, Heisenberg's approach
Speaker 1: showed these well with Schroedinger's approach, because we're talking about
Speaker 1: a continuous wave a wave function, it smooths everything out,
Speaker 1: so you don't have these jagged, you know, jumps, you
Speaker 1: have just a smooth transition um. So the Schroedinger's argument
Speaker 1: was that, hey, you know, I've looked at the way
Speaker 1: you are calculating this, and I look at the way
Speaker 1: I'm calculating this, and it turns out the outcomes are
Speaker 1: the same. We're getting the same results, but mine requires
Speaker 1: less complicated math and not all this mathematic abstraction that
Speaker 1: you are insisting upon. So therefore I'm right and you're wrong,
Speaker 1: or at least mine is more eloquent. So you've got
Speaker 1: these two parties of physicists getting a little caddy Schroedinger caddy.
Speaker 1: Perhaps um, there are alive cats and dead cats. But then, uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because you started getting into other physicists getting
Speaker 1: into the game, including Ernst Pascal Jordan's or Jordan I suppose,
Speaker 1: who was a German physicist who attact later joined the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party, become part of that movement, in fact enlisted
Speaker 1: in the Luftwaffe. Um. And then you had Paul de
Speaker 1: Rak who was an English physicist who both created unified
Speaker 1: equations that took the wave function approach and the matrices
Speaker 1: approach and combine them into what was called a transformation theory,
Speaker 1: which is the very basis of quantum mechanics. So again
Speaker 1: this is all theoretical, it's essentially trying physicists trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to to apply the same sort of
Speaker 1: observation that they had in classical interpretation of physics on
Speaker 1: the macro scale to the quantum level, which is the
Speaker 1: incredibly tiny scale the atomic or subatomic scale, at which
Speaker 1: their rules do not apply. Right. So, but the transformation
Speaker 1: theory ended up showing that there was a combination of
Speaker 1: both Schroedinger's approach and Heisenberg's approach the sort of wave
Speaker 1: particle duality that we know about with quantum mechanics. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what was coming out of this discussion. So
Speaker 1: instead of them both saying no, I'm right, now, I'm right,
Speaker 1: these guys are like, well, actually you're both right. Technically, yeah,
Speaker 1: light is a particle and a wave, and it gets boy,
Speaker 1: toy doesn't get even more crazy, Like it seems magical
Speaker 1: to those of us who are used to classical physics
Speaker 1: on that macro scale, because if things on the macro
Speaker 1: scale behaved the same way that things in the quantum
Speaker 1: scale behaved, it would be like we were living in
Speaker 1: Harry Potter World or something right right there, there would
Speaker 1: be a lot of a lot of you know, people
Speaker 1: suddenly jumping to the left right. Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: or you can never really be sure where someone was
Speaker 1: or how quickly they were moving and and emitting light
Speaker 1: when they did it, they'd be half dead and half
Speaker 1: alive until you looked at them. Yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of things that would be pretty bizarre in our world.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of this classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech stuff after this quick break. So Heisenberg studied
Speaker 1: Jordan and de Rocks papers and found that there were
Speaker 1: probably ms whenever he tried to measure the basic physical
Speaker 1: variables appearing in the equations. And by physical variables, I
Speaker 1: mean an electrons position and its momentum. So that led
Speaker 1: Heisenberg to create the famous principle of uncertainty, which he
Speaker 1: did in nine seven. We usually call that Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Speaker 1: So here's here's how it breaks down. The more precisely
Speaker 1: you determine the position of a sub atomic particle, for example,
Speaker 1: an electron around the nucleus, So the more precisely you
Speaker 1: determine its position, the less precisely you can know about
Speaker 1: the momentum at that moment, and vice versa. So if
Speaker 1: you more precisely determine the subotomic particles momentum, the less
Speaker 1: precisely you can know its actual position, right um. So specifically,
Speaker 1: he was saying that um that running the calculation for this,
Speaker 1: for this determination of the position and the momentum um
Speaker 1: necessarily contains errors, the product of which physically cannot be
Speaker 1: less than the quantum constant h Plancks constant, which is
Speaker 1: the smallest unit the quantum of action in an atom. Right.
Speaker 1: And so what he's saying here is that it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how advanced your measurement apparatus is. In fact, there
Speaker 1: was one point where More criticized Heisenberg's approach because he
Speaker 1: said that he was using essentially microscopes that were not
Speaker 1: precise enough, and in fact it made an error. And
Speaker 1: then Heisenberg got really upset a Bore, and the two
Speaker 1: of them had a falling out that lasted about a year,
Speaker 1: and then Heisenberg eventually wrote a paper and acknowledge He said,
Speaker 1: you know, Bore has criticized this because of such and such,
Speaker 1: an acknowledged that in fact there was an error, but
Speaker 1: said that ultimately that error was beside the point because
Speaker 1: it would not matter how precise that was the fact
Speaker 1: remained that the more you would learn about one thing,
Speaker 1: the less you could know about the other. That's the
Speaker 1: uncertainty or complimentarianism is another way that some people have
Speaker 1: said that there's this complementary relationship between the momentum and
Speaker 1: the position. So in case you I want to know
Speaker 1: what momentum is, that's mass times velocity. Velocity is that
Speaker 1: speed and direction, So that's important to know. So on
Speaker 1: the human scale, this uncertainty is completely negligible. There's you
Speaker 1: might as well just throw it out the window because
Speaker 1: on our scale it just doesn't that it doesn't factor
Speaker 1: into it. It's such a tiny thing. But when you
Speaker 1: look at the smaller scales, this tiny tiny thing becomes
Speaker 1: huge because you're looking at things on an incredibly small scale.
Speaker 1: And because we can't know but with precision both a
Speaker 1: sub atomics particles, a position and its momentum, we cannot
Speaker 1: really make predictions about what's going to happen in the future.
Speaker 1: And in fact, uh this is where Heisenberg says causality
Speaker 1: becomes a problem because if you cannot determine that subatomic
Speaker 1: particles position and momentum, you cannot actually know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen next. So if you were to expand this out,
Speaker 1: now this is this is to the absurd, But if
Speaker 1: you were to expand this out, you could say that
Speaker 1: you cannot for certain know that by doing a certain action,
Speaker 1: a particular effect is going to follow. That's not really
Speaker 1: the case with classical physics again, because we're talking about
Speaker 1: the macro scale, but on the qualm scale, that's the
Speaker 1: case we cannot really know what will happen from one
Speaker 1: moment to the next because we can't know enough about
Speaker 1: all the factors to make that determination, which is which
Speaker 1: is kind of wonderful and kind of terrifying right simultaneously,
Speaker 1: and though it's a cat in a box yep. And
Speaker 1: and then this also ties into that observation problem, right
Speaker 1: because if we even if we observe the phenomenon, then
Speaker 1: we're affecting, we're changing the phenomens. We're making it even
Speaker 1: more impossible to determine what the effect is going to be.
Speaker 1: The cause and effect at the scale is something that
Speaker 1: becomes purely theoretical, because as soon as you try and
Speaker 1: apply practical approaches to it, it all breaks down. And
Speaker 1: we promise this really does relate directly to technology, we're
Speaker 1: getting there. So we then show that light can be
Speaker 1: interpreted as both wave functions and as a particle. That's
Speaker 1: with Boor and Heisenberg together working, they were able to
Speaker 1: kind of come to this conclusion. And as soon as
Speaker 1: you decide how to observe a particular experiment, that interpretation
Speaker 1: become is true and the other interpretation collapses. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, if you're looking at light as a wave,
Speaker 1: you see it as a wave. If you look at
Speaker 1: light as a particle, you see it as a particle,
Speaker 1: and the other half of that interpretation goes away, which
Speaker 1: is insane. They were talking about it about how how
Speaker 1: you observe the experiment, we disturb untouched nature and we
Speaker 1: become limited and learning about nature as it really is.
Speaker 1: In other words, we have a very narrow view into
Speaker 1: what reality is, and once we focus that view on something,
Speaker 1: we cannot know everything else that's outside of that view.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you have a telescope and you are
Speaker 1: using that telescope to look at something that's on the
Speaker 1: distant horizon, and you can see that you can see
Speaker 1: the thing that's on the horizon, but everything else has
Speaker 1: faded away. It's like all of that's just gone. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what the sort of an analogy as to
Speaker 1: what he was saying here, which is disturbing to think
Speaker 1: about in a way, but that's how reality works, so
Speaker 1: you gotta come of deal with it um. So Heisenberg's
Speaker 1: uncertainty principle in Stringer's wave functions become the basis of
Speaker 1: the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. And the reason why
Speaker 1: we even did this podcast besides the fact that I
Speaker 1: think someone actually asked us to and Lauren's going to
Speaker 1: look that up, but the reason why we're doing this
Speaker 1: is because heisenberg'suncertainty principle plays into the way that we
Speaker 1: use electronics today, because now we're working with electronics that
Speaker 1: have components that are on this tiny, tiny skin at
Speaker 1: least the nano scale, which is one one factor up
Speaker 1: from atomic but far away. The flow of electrons is
Speaker 1: critical for modern absolutely and while we're making these tiny
Speaker 1: transistors or transistor elements that are part of these integrated circuits,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole purpose of transistors is to guide
Speaker 1: the flow of electrons, to allow them to pass or
Speaker 1: to not allow them to pass through a circuit. Well,
Speaker 1: if you make the gates really thin. Heisenberg's and certainty
Speaker 1: principle tells us that there is a kind of a
Speaker 1: zone in which you might find an electron, and because
Speaker 1: of the uncertainty about the electron's momentum or energy, sometimes
Speaker 1: that electron can jump up an energy level because of
Speaker 1: our uncertainty, we we you know, it just will pop
Speaker 1: up an energy level and then pop back down, which
Speaker 1: means they can be found in a slightly larger zone
Speaker 1: than you would not necessarily expect based upon its actual
Speaker 1: energy level, which can be problematic when when you've got
Speaker 1: these incredibly thin gates that are supposed to be keeping
Speaker 1: an electrons on one side, right, that that zone might
Speaker 1: extend beyond the far side of that gate. And if
Speaker 1: the zone extends beyond the far side of the gate,
Speaker 1: that means that it's possible for an electron to appear
Speaker 1: on the other side of the gate without having actually
Speaker 1: passed through that circuit, which means called electron tunneling. And
Speaker 1: since it's possible, it happens, which which means that, yeah,
Speaker 1: unless we figure out ways of getting around these you know,
Speaker 1: these these fundamental quantum phenomena that we you know, there's
Speaker 1: a point where you cannot make the components any smaller
Speaker 1: because the electrons just won't play ball. They're just gonna
Speaker 1: go every way that the fundamental quantum traffic laws, as
Speaker 1: you put it in our exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it means
Speaker 1: that that you're you're gonna get errors in your various
Speaker 1: chips because they will not be allowing the or or
Speaker 1: preventing the electrons from flowing the way they're supposed to,
Speaker 1: because the electrons are just going to be able to
Speaker 1: tunnel right through when when those uh, those energy levels
Speaker 1: bump up uncertainly. It's bizarre, it's so weird to think
Speaker 1: about um. But engineers have found ways of working around that,
Speaker 1: using different materials that uh that that minimize this so
Speaker 1: that they can continue to make things smaller and smaller.
Speaker 1: But we will reach a point when that is just
Speaker 1: not going to be the way that chips will be
Speaker 1: designed anymore. Either will will plateau and we won't be
Speaker 1: able to make chips with smaller components, or will find
Speaker 1: a different means of useing sub atomic particles to process information,
Speaker 1: and we'll move away from electron based chips, which is
Speaker 1: hard to consider. It's really weird to think about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not that that that is beyond my entire brain
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, I'm actually starting to feel a nosebleed
Speaker 1: coming on because I'm a I'm an English literature major.
Speaker 1: Al Right, well, let's let's bring this back to something,
Speaker 1: to something a little bit more peaceful and serene. I
Speaker 1: have I have a quote from Heisenberg via via pds um.
Speaker 1: He once said natural science does not simply describe and
Speaker 1: explain nature. It's part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.
Speaker 1: It describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool, which I thought was nice. I thought
Speaker 1: that that was a much less nosebleedy way of saying
Speaker 1: that that we mess stuff up scientifically. And also it
Speaker 1: also is less uh nasty than his note to U
Speaker 1: or note about Shrodinger. Right. So um oh, I found
Speaker 1: the name of the person who requested this via Facebook.
Speaker 1: This was from listener Peter. So Peter asked us about this,
Speaker 1: and I hope that we were able to answer your
Speaker 1: questions to uh your satisfaction. It was certainly to the
Speaker 1: best of our ability, keeping in mind that neither of
Speaker 1: us are theoretical physicists. Not by a long show mathematicians
Speaker 1: for that matter. Uh fascinating subject, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of books out there that are really really good
Speaker 1: about explaining Heisenberg's role and also the contributions of his contemporaries,
Speaker 1: everyone from Einstein to Somerville, to Schroedinger to to all
Speaker 1: all the great physicists of the nineteen twenties and thirties
Speaker 1: who have really made modern technology possible through their discoveries.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up another classic episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future topics, reach out to me. You can
Speaker 1: get in touch on Twitter or on Facebook. The handle
Speaker 1: at both of those is tech Stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.