WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Say My Name 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.319 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.320 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.880 and I love all things tech, and it is time 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.440 for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode is titled 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:29.520 Say My Name. It published originally on September two, thousand thirteen. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.040 I'm guessing this one's about Heisenberg. That's right. I'm going 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.720 purely by the title here. I have not gone back 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.080 to listen to this episode. I'm going to experience this 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.600 again with you guys. Obviously not for the first time. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.680 I was there in but dude, I can't remember last Tuesday. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.720 So let's sit back and listen to this classic episode. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:57.080 Werner Heisenberg. Right, I'm just not sure about this topic. Heisenberg, Right, okay, 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:58.480 wall I think I have some notes on him too, 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.680 are you? This is he was born on December five, 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:05.240 nineteen o one. Yes, that one, the physicist. Yes, the 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.679 famous theoretical physicist. All right, well, all right, maybe I 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.240 won't get a geek out about breaking bad, but that's fine. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.120 We can talk about Vernon Heisenberg. I like that your 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.399 German pronunciation is better than the lady with the last 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:24.280 name vocal bomb. That's pretty that's pretty great. Um So 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.760 born on December five, nineteen o one, in Verzberg. Uh 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.400 and yeah, Heisenberg has played an incredibly important role in 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:38.039 the establishment that that's the foundations of what is quantum mechanics. Right. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.399 If you've heard of something something called the uncertainty principle, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.560 that is a k A. Heisenberg's u certain new principle, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.320 that that is, he is the operative Heisenberg. In this 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.320 we will we will explain what that uncertainty principle is 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.000 in certain terms, but that will be towards the second 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:56.680 half of the podcast. First we wanted to kind of 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.600 talk about who he was, sort of his background. His 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.640 father was an expert in Middle and modern Greek languages. 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:10.880 That's a Dr. August Heisenberg. His mother was any wink Lin. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.120 Winklin wink Lin was w there's no W sound in German. 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.160 It's um, yeah, so vs or fs and and w 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.680 s or vs. That's easy to remember, simple, all right, Yeah, 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.160 so yeah, he he um. It's funny because I understand 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.120 that his his own background in Greek. His father was 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.920 an expert in Greek. His own background in Greek meant 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.040 that when they got to the point where physicists were 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:41.919 starting to name theoretical and he would correct people's use 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.040 of Greek, saying things like, you cannot spell it this 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.560 way because that's not how it would be actually spelled 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.679 if such a thing existed in the Greek language. So 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.000 so he was, um, you know, helping us stay on 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.560 the rails as far as the use of Greek, right 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:58.640 while he was growing up. When he was twelve, that 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.720 is when Neil's Bore presents did his general theory of 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:07.120 of quantum existence. Yes, so Bore would be incredibly important 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.880 during Heisenberg's education. But Niels Bore also known for making 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.880 the Bore model of the atom. So that was the 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.480 model the atom that suggested that you had a central 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:22.320 nucleus and then electrons that were orbiting nucleus. Yeah, so 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.640 that's you know, anyone who's taken any any class in 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:30.160 chemistry or physics has seen the Boor model. It's still 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.040 one of those things that um usually is. It's part 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.440 of the history of the development of particle physics and 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.600 quantum mechanics. Right. We we know now that it's a 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.600 little bit um simplified Yeah. In fact, Heisenberg would go 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.360 on to be the one who right exactly right, Uh, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.600 he was. While he was in high school, there was 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.200 a major event that played out across the entire world 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.160 and particularly in Europe. World War One. Yeah, World War 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.320 One happened between nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen. So of 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.080 Heisenberg's academic contemporaries, or not even contemporaries, some of his 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.880 mentors had actually served in World War One, various officers 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.440 in the military, right right. Um, Heisenberg himself had to 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.760 leave school, leave high school to go help harvest crops 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.400 in Bavaria at the time. And um, by by the 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.960 time he got back after the war, he was deeply 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.719 involved in youth groups like the New Boy Scouts. That 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:30.320 we're trying to rebuild the science and artistic culture in Germany. Right, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.960 So keep in mind, like at this time in Germany, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.360 things are really tumultuous. I mean, World War One was 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.880 already one of those events that that played upon certain 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.680 sentiments in Germany, and after the war was concluded, that 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.720 got even more messy because you had the rest of 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.279 the world, uh, you know, trying to deal with this 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.640 situation and make sure that it could not happen again. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.000 I mean, this was one of those wars that no 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.560 one really expected whatever happened. But as the idea was 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.599 that everyone would be building up their armies to a 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.400 point that anyone would be crazy to attack anyone else. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.280 And as it turns out, humans are crazy, y'all. So um, yeah, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.120 we it was. It was one of those things where 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.159 where as in an attempt to prevent this from happening again, 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.520 there were a lot of reparations demanded against Germany. This 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.159 in turn ended up fueling a lot of resentment in 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:27.200 Germany and would eventually give the Nazi movement sort of 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.480 the kind of foothold. Yeah exactly, It gave them that 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.920 that that place to build some support, because you had 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.400 all these Germans who felt that that their lives had 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.679 been ruined as a result of the actions that followed 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.839 World War One. Now that plays a big role in 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:50.040 Heisenberg's life because this is also a time when physicists 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:54.600 are making incredible discoveries. We are learning more about the 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.760 quantum world, that that atomic scale world than ever before. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.880 The instruments that were being made were becoming precise enough 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.800 for us to look at things on a level that 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.320 we never could have seen before. So there is a 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.440 figurative explosion in physics at this time and a lot 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.960 of and sometimes literal explosions. But a lot of the 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.480 physicists that were active at this time, particularly in Germany, 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.520 were of Jewish descent. Now, of course that would cause 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.320 play another important role once we talk about the rise 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.200 of the Nazi movement and the entry into World War two. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.919 Obviously that's going to to really shake things up. But 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.360 before we get to that point, we talk more a 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.320 little about about Heisenberg's educational background. Once World War One 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.880 had concluded, he attended the Maximilian School at Munich and 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.599 then eventually the University of Munich. He originally went to 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.960 study math, but according to reports, a professor wouldn't let 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.320 him into an advanced seminar, and that's when he switched 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.919 to physics. And just imagine what the world would be 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.640 like without that, I mean, quantum physics, for example, might 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.240 have a very different approach, particularly when you start talking 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.200 about people like Schrodinger, and we will and maybe we'll 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.400 even mention his cat so uh. At the university, he 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.880 studied physics with professors like Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, who 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.240 was a theoretical physicist. Uh he was a physicist who 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.240 would stay on teaching even during World War Two, so 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.640 he stayed in Germany and continued to teach. He did 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.200 get a little upset that the well more than a 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:40.840 little upset that his departments were being completely yet purged 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.360 of anyone who had any sort of Jewish background, whether 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.520 they self identified as Jewish or if they had maybe 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.559 an ancestor the three generations back who was Jewish. Sure. Also, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.720 according to some reports, the Nazis considered the theoretical physics 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.440 as a field to be Jewish. Yes, yes, because there 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.440 were there were so many Jewish inkers who were the 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.960 leaders of theoretical physics that the Nazis looked down upon 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.600 the entire discipline as being something that was impure and 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.240 should be completely purged. And in fact, instead they wanted 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.360 to have Deutsche physique that's German physics as a study 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.840 as opposed to theoretical physics, so that would also disrupt 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.000 the advances that could have happened during that time. Another 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.960 professor was Wilhelm Karl Ferner Otto Fritz Franvien, you're just 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.400 enjoying saying these names, aren't you? Will Helm Vien is 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.280 usually how we we say that, but yes, you're The 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.760 answer to that question is yes, I love. I love 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.760 saying German names. Uh. He was a physicist and he 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.440 focused on black body radiation and electromagnetics magnetism rather and 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.360 he passed away in n So he died before World 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.720 War two began. He died before the Nazis had really 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:57.360 taken control of Germany. Um there was Alfred Pringsheim who 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.199 was a professor of mathematics and had Jewish roots. During 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.800 the Nazi regime, he would see his entire fortune taken 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.920 from him. Everything he had inherited a huge fortune and 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.160 everything he owned was taken by the Nazis. He was 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.040 eventually forced to change his name to Alfred Israel Prinsheim 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:20.160 because of his Jewish ancestry. One wonderfully racists, you know, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.920 the Nazis were not known for being subtle with the 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.200 way that they treated any one of Jewish heritage. And 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.400 then a fourth professor was Arthur Rosenthal, who had a 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.480 focus on geometry as well as dynamical systems, also had 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.400 Jewish roots. He would be forced from his position in 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.160 nineteen thirty six by the Nazis and would eventually immigrate 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.360 to the United States and nineteen nine and taught at 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.439 the University of Michigan, which has come up a lot 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.200 in our conversations recently because that's where Sid went to. 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.440 But he taught at the University of Michigan, then eventually 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.600 taught at the University of New Mexico and then later 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.240 at Purdue University. So these were the four professors who 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:03.480 really kind of sparked Heisenberg's fascination with physics and mathematics, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:10.360 and this is founding in in those subjects exactly, so Somerfeld, Veen, Pringsheim, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:15.160 and Rosenthal Uh. Then in nineteen two Heisenberg went to 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:20.600 Goodingen Goodingen as a University of Goodingen to study physics 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:26.480 under some more famous physicists, including Max Bourne, whose focus 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.560 was on quantum mechanics, particularly in statistical interpretation of the 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.679 wave functioned which we will talk about again and a 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.439 little bit because Schrodinger was definitely a wave functioned guy. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.520 As it turns out, Heisenberg was different. He did not 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.640 really look at the wave function of quantum physics. He 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.680 was looking at something else. And now I'll explain that 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.680 when we get there, because that's fun for me. UM. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.400 The born Max Boorne was also the director of theoretical 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.360 physics at the university and was Jewish, so he immigrated 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:58.560 to the United Kingdom when the Nazis came into power 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.000 in Germany and could tinued to research particle physics, well 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.400 well not quite particle physics, quantum physics and theoretical physics, 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.160 as well as teaching in the UK. Then you had 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.520 James Frank who was a physicistant, studied atomic and subatomic collisions, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.800 particularly electrons colliding with adams, and also was of Jewish heritage. 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.040 So he would leave Germany in nineteen thirty three for 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.520 the United States and would later participate in what was 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.920 known as the Manhattan Project. We could do a full 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.880 episode on the Manhattan Project that in fact, Yeah, it's 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:38.840 an amazing story. UM. And here's another great story with 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.439 James Frank. So he won the Nobel Prize in n 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:46.000 for physics. He left the gold medal, the Nobel Prize 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.480 medal back in Germany when he left to essentially flee 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.040 to the United States. Um. There was another physicist named 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.360 George de Heavasy, and I know I'm saying that name wrong, 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.120 So I greatly apologize, but for once, we're talking about 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.040 someone who's not German, so I can't say his name. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.800 But he he in order to protect this gold medal 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.040 from being taken by the Nazis and melted down, he 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.840 dissolved the metal and acid and then put the solution 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.679 on a shelf, so it's a solution with dissolved gold 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.120 on the shelf. World War two is over, he goes back, 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.560 the solution is still on the shelf. He then precipitates 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.000 that solution, precipitateing the gold out of the acid, and 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.600 he used the gold to melt it back into the 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.720 metal and meant a new and meant a new metal 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.800 so that they can give it uh back to James Frank. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.800 So that I thought was a really cool story. Then 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.800 there's another professor he studied under was David Hilbert, was 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.079 a mathematician who focused on geometry and functional analysis, who 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.600 retired in n So he lived to see the Nazis 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.760 purge Germany of Jewish mathematicians and physicists, and was later 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.719 asked at a state dinner. He was actually asked a 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.439 question about what was the state of mathematics after it 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.840 had been quote unquote free of Jewish influence, and his 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.320 response was, there's no study of mathematics anymore. He was 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.559 essentially saying that the actions of the Nazis had effectively 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:15.280 into the entire field because they had they had removed 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.679 or or had caused to flee all of the leading 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:23.240 thinkers and instead, including like Einstein. So they were turning 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.120 mathematics and science into a political thing, and by doing that, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.320 they were saying that these other things that did not 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.960 fit that political regime as invalid. And that's not the 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.600 way science works, not the way mathematics works, but that's 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.200 how we're demanding. It can be a very effective means 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.440 of controlling a population by controlling their education. Sure, but 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.880 also it also ends up meaning that you really you, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.679 you just throw a huge monkey wrench into any kind 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.800 of advancement in those fields. So before World War two, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.000 this is this is all happening before World War two, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.600 and Heisenberg is studying under these different professors, so during 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.360 these years he has the ability to really pursue his 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:10.599 interests in theoretical physics and mathematics. So, uh, this was 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.240 on the in the nineteen twenties so and so was 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.400 before even the Third Wreck was coming into power at all. Right, right, 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.720 so that these are in the years between World War 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.200 One and the Nazis rise to power. So during those years, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.200 that's when Heisenberg was studying. And while many of his 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.360 professors would end up having to flee or would be 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.360 removed from their jobs, at this time none of that 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.920 was necessarily evident that that was going to happen. So 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.960 he spent his time really talking with some of the 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.720 leading thinkers of the day when it comes to theoretical 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.680 physics and mathematics, right, um so Ine he earned his 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.280 PhD from the University of Munich and um went to 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.160 become an assistant to his old professor Maxi Born at 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:55.560 the University of getting In and so in he would 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.560 go to the University of Copenhagen and begin work with 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:04.560 Niels Henrik David Bore, who was Danish, not German, but 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.960 a Danish physicist and uh and of course he was 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.200 really interested in atomic radiation and atomic structure, and we 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.560 talked about the Boor model of the atom earlier in 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:18.880 the podcast um So. In nineteen six Heisenberg would go 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.000 to the University of Copenhagen for about a year and 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.000 then leave. But in ninety six there was a position 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.680 opening opening up at the University of Copenhagen for a 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:32.760 lecturer in theoretical physics. So Boor recommended Heisenberg, thinking that 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.160 Heisenberg was an up and coming leader in this space, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.640 and so Heisenberg became the lecturer and theoretical physics at 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:44.520 the University of Copenhagen. Bore himself would be at Copenhagen 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.040 for quite some time until nineteen forty three, where he 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:52.360 would eventually flee to Sweden to escape the Nazis. Nineteen five, 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:57.280 that's when Heisenberg publishes his theory of quantum mechanics. So 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.160 he was of the ripe old age of twin d 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:05.560 three years old, twenty three years old, and he is, uh, 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:10.840 he is he is presenting a completely um well, he's 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.760 presenting his own, his own perspective on what quantum mechanics 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.000 actually is. As we'll see, that ends up getting kind 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:23.280 of assimilated into a unified view by looking at some 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.760 some other theories that Heisenberg did not necessarily agree with 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.440 at the time. Nope, not so much at all. As 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.040 it turns out, physicists, like any other type of human being, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:38.240 can occasionally get very married to specific ideas and maybe 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.200 a little bit snarky. Yeah, there's some there's some great 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.640 quotes that we'll be reading. Yeah, but yeah, it turns 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:49.880 out that not everybody agreed on the behavior of particles 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.280 at that level because they were first of all, there 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.080 was no way to really directly observe them, so it's 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.119 all hypothetical, and it was mostly things like your equations 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.360 are are not as easy to understand my equations, therefore 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.960 my equations are better. That kind of thing. In fact, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:09.200 that really is one of the arguments. So in n seven, 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.480 at the age of twenty six, you know, he's he's 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.639 definitely hitting that that middle age there for physicists. Twenty 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.120 six years old, he becomes the professor of theoretical physics 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.280 at the University of Leipsig, and this made him the 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.600 youngest full professor in Germany at the time. Yeah, so 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.239 he was certainly making a name for himself in the 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.280 in the academic world. In nineteen nine, he goes on 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.240 a lecture tour of the United States and Japan and India, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.600 uh and in nineteen thirty two he receives the Nobel 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.720 Prize in Physics for his discovery of the allotropic forms 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.520 of hydrogen. It was is for from that paper that 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.080 he had published about quantum mechanics. Out of that one 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.840 of the applications was this discovery. Right. So, in case 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.639 you're wondering what the heck is an allotrope, it's a 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.119 different structural modification of an element. So let's take carbon. 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.719 Carbon is a great example. When you have a certain 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.960 structure of carbon, it forms graphite. Different structure of carbon 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.719 forms diamond too, slightly different substances. Yeah, these these different 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.520 these different manifestations of the same element. I mean, it's 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.600 it's the exact same element. It's just the way that 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.960 it's been or the way that it arranges itself determines 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.560 its qualities. And graphite and diamond are like nine day 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.439 they're incredibly different. So that's what an allotrope is is 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.920 these different manifestations of an element that have very different qualities. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:41.160 With the case of hydrogen, we're talking about ortho hydrogen 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.280 and parahydrogen. Don't ask me what that actually means because 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.960 I'm not a physicist or a chemist, so I am 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.560 incapable of answering me, neither I am. I'm at a 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.040 loss there, but I do know that in ninety seven 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.399 Heisenberg married Elizabeth Schumacher, who he would go on to 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.399 have seven children with over the course of their marriage. Wow. 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.119 Now this is also the time when we're starting to 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.600 see the Nazis come into power in World War two 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.240 is beginning, and this was This becomes a pretty muddy 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:16.080 area of Heisenberg's life because it's hard to know which 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.720 historical records are the most accurate. Right, There's there's a 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.000 lot of contention within the historical community about um, what 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:29.440 exactly Heisenberg's personal views and um and roles were. In 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.520 all of this, he had become the target of of 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:39.200 Johannes's Stark n I'm just entering apologize with our English. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.639 Our English pronunciation in German pronunciation are different and and 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.119 to be fair, the vocal downside of my family is 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.400 is really more like Polish Russian. So Johannes Stark was 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.119 also a physicist, but he was and he was a 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.080 physicist in fact, who in his UH in the twenties 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.119 had published a paper by Einstein. He had actually the 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.800 um UH solicited Einstein to write a paper for the 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.480 publication that he was editing, and it was a publication 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:12.640 that would eventually lead Einstein to ruminate upon the general 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.560 theory of relativity. It was sort of a kind of 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.320 a precursor to his general theory, which meant that in 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.879 a way, Johannes Stark was very much part of what 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.760 made Einstein a worldwide phenomenon. Now, the reason why I 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.080 say that's really interesting, or perhaps he might even say ironic, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.440 is that Johannes Stark would align himself with the Nazi regime. 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:40.280 He wanted essentially to be the fewer of physics, which 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.280 is that's I mean, that's exactly the way I saw 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.600 it worded when I was reading the biography, which is 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:50.240 kind of terrifying. But he he also aligned himself with 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.520 the Deutsche Physics movement, the the German physics movement, and 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.800 he said that because Heisenberg continued to teach Einstein's theories 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.440 and classroom in Einstein's theories, of course we're not part 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.320 of this Deutsche physics, uh movement. That he was what 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.040 what Stark would call a white Jew or an arian Jew, 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.000 someone who is not Jewish by heritage but is by 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:19.400 association because he continues to teach these thoughts that Jewish 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.399 mathematicians and physicists had come up with, so that somehow 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:28.320 that meant that he was a traitor. Yes, so um 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.440 So Stark was very much opposed to Heisenberg and didn't 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.680 feel that Heisenberg should should have any sort of position 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.640 of authority. That did not stop Heisenberg from having that position. 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.439 He was obviously very important to the university and was 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.119 one of the few protected. Of course, part of it 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.560 was that he did not actually have any Jewish ancestry 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.840 that anyone could determine, so that kept him somewhat safe, 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:56.679 right sure, um you know, there's part of the debate 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.800 about Heisenberg is whether or not he um he stayed 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:05.000 in order to uh to help preserve Germany's scientific and 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.280 cultural communities, or whether he was actually working for the 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.120 Nazi Party. Um. He was made the director of the 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.879 German Adam Bomb project and spent about five years working 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.679 on that, supposedly, during which another portion of the debate 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.760 is whether he was working towards a nuclear reactor or 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.879 nuclear weapons, and no one is really entirely sure. Supposedly 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.320 he gave a report to Nazi official Albert Spear um 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.680 that as of one or so, it would take three 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.080 or four years for them to build a nuclear weapon, 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.520 and that that is part of why the Nazi Party said, 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.160 I'll forget this nuclear weapon thing, let's go with nuclear 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:50.560 reactors to help drive sure. Um and uh so, but 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.480 but you know, that's that's there's been other research um 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.240 for for example, one Paul Lawrence Rose wrote an entire 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.800 book called Heisenberg and the Nazi Coomic Bomb Project that 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.119 stated that, uh, Heisenberg wasn't being evasive to the Nazi Party, 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.520 that rather he was being truthful due to a basic 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.920 misunderstanding of the way that nuclear fission worked, and that 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.760 by the time he figured it out, it was when 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.480 the war was already winding down and he started to 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.400 hear about the atrocities that the Nazi Party had committed 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.560 and kind of reactively recreated this image of himself as 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:30.040 as having been an anti Nazi the entire time. And 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:32.280 that's the thing is that it's it's impossible for us 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:33.920 to say one way or the other because there are 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:38.320 conflicting reports and and really it's you know, it's just 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:40.959 it's a it's a difficult thing. Again. Once again, we 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.280 take our our our podcasting hats off to our sister 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:46.800 podcast stuff he missed in history class that deals with 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:48.760 this kind of stuff all the time. Oh sure, and 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.800 and especially you know, everything surrounding the Nazi Party is 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.159 incredibly sticky. Um. You know, some of my favorite favorite 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.399 stories about that time or stuff like like like like 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:01.120 Lenie Reefinstahl, who was one of the who was the 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:05.760 propagandist or a documentary filmmaker for the Nazi Party, And 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:08.200 I mean she she took tea with Hitler frequently and 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.840 has claimed forever that she never knew about the atrocities 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:15.280 that were going on. And so it's it's it's one 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:17.400 of those things like who do you believe? Yeah, and 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:21.760 uh yeah, getting back into into the what Heisenberg was 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:25.600 going through at this time. So there is there's an 0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:28.720 argument to be made that he was trying to preserve 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:33.160