WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Say My Name 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.680 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.520 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.279 how Stuff Works in love all things tech, and it's 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.959 time for another classic episode of tech Stuff, and this one, 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:29.280 Lauren Vogelbaum and I go over the contributions of Heisenberg. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:34.879 What do you do? I'm not certain. Ah, that's a joke, no, 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.040 But seriously, we wanted to talk about Heisenberg. Heisenberg's work 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.519 in theoretical physics and how that made a huge impact 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.200 and continues to make a huge impact in technology. So 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.839 sit back, relax, and enjoy this classic episode of tech Stuff. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.120 I'm just not sure about this topic. Heisenberg, right, okay, 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:58.520 wall I think I have some notes on him too, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.720 are you? This is he was born on December five, 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.280 nineteen o one. Yes, that one, the physicist. Yes, the 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.720 famous theoretical physicist. All right, well, all right, maybe I 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.280 won't get a geek out about breaking bad, but that's fine. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.160 We can talk about Vernon Heisenberg. I like that your 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.440 German pronunciation is better than the lady with the last 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:24.319 name vocal bomb. That's pretty that's pretty great. Um. So 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.800 born on December five, nineteen o one, in Verzberg. Uh 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.440 and yeah, Heisenberg has played an incredibly important role in 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:38.080 the establishment that that's the foundations of what is quantum mechanics. Right. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.440 If you've heard of something something called the uncertainty principle, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.600 that is a k A. Heisenberg's n certain new principle, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.360 that that is, he is the operative Heisenberg. In this 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.680 we will explain what that uncertainty principle is in certain terms, 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.880 but that'll be towards the second half of the podcast. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.440 First we wanted to kind of talk about who he was, 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:02.440 sort of his background. His father was an expert in 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:07.600 Middle and modern Greek languages. That's a Dr. August Heisenberg. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:13.600 His mother was any Winklin. Winklin Winklin was w. Yes, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.960 there's no W sound in German. It's um. Yeah, so vs, 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.680 r F S and w s or vs. That's easy 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.560 to remember, simple, all right, Yeah, so yeah, he he um. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.320 It's funny because I understand that his his own background 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.640 in Greek, his father was an expert in Greek. His 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.280 own background in Greek meant that when they got to 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.720 the point where physicists were starting to name theoretical and 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.160 he would correct people's use of Greek, saying things like, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.240 you cannot spell it this way because that's not how 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.720 it would be actually spelled if such a thing existed 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.359 in the Greek language. So so he was, um, you know, 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.360 helping us stay on the rails as far as the 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.880 use of Greek, right while he was growing up. When 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.239 he was twelve, that is when Neil's Bore present did 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.320 his general theory of of quantum existence. Yes, so Bore 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:10.680 would be incredibly important during Heisenberg's education. But Niels Bore 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.520 also known for making the Bore model of the atom. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.480 So that was the model the atom that suggested that 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.480 you had a central nucleus and then electrons that were 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.080 orbiting nucleus. Yeah, so that's you know, anyone who's taken 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.960 any any class in chemistry or physics has seen the 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.919 Boor model. It's still one of those things that um 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.800 usually is. It's part of the history of the development 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.160 of particle physics and quantum mechanics. Right, we we know 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.680 now that it's a little bit um simplified. Yeah. In fact, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.120 Heisenberg would go on, would be the one who right 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.320 exactly right. Uh, he was. While he was in high school, 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.320 there was a major event that played out across the 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.600 entire world and particularly in Europe. World War One. Yeah, 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.320 World War One happened between nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.840 Some of Heisenberg's academic contemporaries, or not even contemporaries, some 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.040 of his mentors had actually served in World War One 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.720 as various officers in the military, right right. Um, Heisenberg 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.600 himself had to leave school, leave high school to go 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.880 help harvest crops in Bavaria at the time. And um, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:20.800 by by the time he got back after the war, 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.039 he was deeply involved in youth groups like the New 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.240 Boy Scouts that we're trying to rebuild the science and 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.440 artistic culture in Germany. Right, So keep in mind, like 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:36.279 at this time in Germany, things are really tumultuous. I mean, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.400 World War One was already one of those events that 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.760 that played upon certain sentiments in Germany, and after the 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.760 war was concluded, that got even more messy because you 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.520 had the rest of the world, uh, you know, trying 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:54.719 to deal with this situation and make sure that it 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.680 could not happen again. I mean, this was one of 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.200 those wars that no one really expected whatever happened, because 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.080 the idea was that everyone would be building up their 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.479 armies to a point that anyone would be crazy to 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.760 attack anyone else. And as it turns out, humans are crazy, y'all. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.560 So um, yeah, we it was. It was one of 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.200 those things where where as in an attempt to prevent 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.719 this from happening again, there were a lot of reparations 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.600 demanded against Germany. This in turn ended up fueling a 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.920 lot of resentment in Germany and would eventually give the 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.599 Nazi movement sort of the kind of foothold. Yeah, exactly, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.279 it gave them that that that place to build some support, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.240 because you had all these Germans who felt that uh, 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.159 that their lives had been ruined as a result of 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.800 the actions that followed World War One. Now that plays 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.000 a big role in Heisenberg's life because this is also 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.920 a time when physicists are making incredible discoveries. We are 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.120 learning more about the quantum world, that that atomic scale 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:01.520 world than ever before. The instruments that were being made 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.200 were becoming precise enough for us to look at things 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.320 on a level that we never could have seen before. 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:11.840 So there is a figurative explosion in physics at this time, 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.600 and a lot of and sometimes literal explosions. But a 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.839 lot of the physicists that were active at this time, 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.799 particularly in Germany, were of Jewish descent. Now, of course 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.560 that would cause play another important role once we talk 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.159 about the rise of the Nazi movement and the entry 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.719 into World War two. Obviously that's going to to really 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.760 shake things up. But before we get to that point, 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.760 we talk more a little about about Heisenberg's educational background. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.440 Once World War One had concluded, he attended the Maximilian 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.160 School at Munich and then eventually the University of Munich. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.920 He originally went to study math, but according to reports, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.599 a professor wouldn't let him into an advanced seminar, and 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.279 that's when he switched to physics. And just imagine what 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.479 the world would be like without the I mean, quantum physics, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:05.720 for example, might have a very different approach, particularly when 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.080 you start talking about people like Schrodinger, and we will 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.400 and maybe we'll even mention his cat so uh. He 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.600 at the university, he studied physics with professors like Arnold 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:21.400 Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, who was a theoretical physicist. Uh he 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.840 was a physicist who would stay on teaching even during 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.160 World War Two, so he stayed in Germany and continued 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:34.560 to teach. He did get a little upset that the 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.760 more than a little upset that his departments were being 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.200 completely yet purged of anyone who had any sort of 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.240 Jewish background, whether they self identified as Jewish or if 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.560 they had maybe an ancestor the three generations back who 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.840 was Jewish. Sure. Also, according to some reports, the Nazis 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:57.000 considered the theoretical physics as a field to be Jewish. Yes, yes, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.720 because there were there were so many Jewish thinkers who 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.440 were the leaders of theoretical physics that the Nazis looked 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.920 down upon the entire discipline as being something that was 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.760 impure and should be completely purged. And in fact, instead 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.920 they wanted to have Deutsche physique that's German physics as 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.800 a study as opposed to theoretical physics, so that would 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:24.280 also disrupt the advances that could have happened during that time. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.880 Another professor was Wilhelm Karl Ferner Otto, Fritz Franvien. You're 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.319 just enjoying saying these names, aren't you. Wil Helm veen 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.120 Is usually how we we say that, but yes, you're 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.559 The answer to that question is yes, I love I 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.680 love saying German names. Uh. He was a physicist and 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.840 he focused on black body radiation and electromagnetics magnetism rather 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.400 and he passed away in so he died before World 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.760 War two began. He died before the Nazis had really 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.480 taken control of Germany. Um there was Alfred Pringsheim who 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.240 was a professor of mathematics and had Jewish roots. During 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.840 the Nazi regime, he would see his entire fortune taken 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.959 from him. Everything he had inherited a huge fortune and 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.199 everything he owned was taken by the Nazis. He was 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.119 eventually forced to change his name to Alfred Israel Prinsheim 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:20.240 because of his Jewish ancestry. One wonderfully racist, you know, 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.959 the Nazis were not known for being subtle with the 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.240 way that they treated any one of Jewish heritage. And 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.440 then a fourth professor was Arthur Rosenthal, who had a 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.520 focus on geometry as well as dynamical systems, also had 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.440 Jewish roots. He would be forced from his position in 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.199 nineteen thirty six by the Nazis and would eventually immigrate 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.400 to the United States and nineteen nine and taught at 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.480 the University of Michigan, which has come up a lot 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.240 in our conversations recently because that's where Sid went to. 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.679 But he taught the University of Michigan, then eventually taught 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.800 at the University of New Mexico and then later at 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:58.640 Purdue University. So these were the four professors who really 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.840 kind of sparked Heisenberg's fascination with physics and mathematics, and 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:10.400 this is founding in in those subjects exactly, So Somerfeld, Veen, Pringsheim, 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.200 and Rosenthal Uh. Then in nineteen two Heisenberg went to 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.640 Goodingen Goodingen as a University of Goodingen to study physics 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:26.520 under some more famous physicists, including Max Bourne, whose focus 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.600 was on quantum mechanics, particularly in statistical interpretation of the 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.719 wave functioned, which we will talk about again and a 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.480 little bit because Schrodinger was definitely a wave functioned guy. 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.559 As it turns out, Heisenberg was different. He did not 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.679 really look at the wave function of quantum physics. He 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:45.720 was looking at something else. And now I'll explain that 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.720 when we get there, because that's fun for me. Um. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.439 The born Max Boorne was also the director of theoretical 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.400 physics at the university and was Jewish, so he immigrated 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.560 to the United Kingdom when the Nazis came into power 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:03.320 in Germany and continued to research particle physics, well well 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.600 not quite particle physics, quantum physics, and theoretical physics, as 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:11.080 well as teaching in the UK. Then you had James Frank, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:15.480 who was a physicistant, studied atomic and subatomic collisions, particularly 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.840 electrons colliding with adams, and also was of Jewish heritage. 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.079 So he would leave Germany in nineteen thirty three for 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.560 the United States and would later participate in what was 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.959 known as the Manhattan Project. We could do a full 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.920 episode on the Manhattan Project that in fact. Yeah, it's 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:38.880 an amazing story. Um. And here's another great story with 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.480 James Frank. So he won the Nobel Prize in n 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.040 for physics. He left the gold medal, the Nobel Prize 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.520 medal back in Germany when he left to essentially flee 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.120 to the United States. Um. There was another physicist named 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.440 George de Heavasy. And I know I'm saying that name wrong, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.160 so I greatly apologize. But for once, we're talking about 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.079 someone who's not German, so I can't say his name, 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.839 but he he in order to protect this gold medal 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.080 from being taken by the Nazis and melted down, he 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.880 dissolved the metal and acid and then put the solution 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.760 on a shelf, so it's a solution with dissolved gold 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.160 on the shelf. World War two is over, he goes back, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.600 the solution is still on the shelf. He then precipitates 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.040 that solution, precipitating the gold out of the acid, and 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.640 he used the gold to melt it back into the 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.760 metal and meant a new and meant a new metal 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.839 so that they can give it uh back to James Frank. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.839 So that I thought was a really cool story. Then 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.839 there's another professor he studied under was David Hilbert was 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.120 a mathematician who focused on geometry and functional analysis who 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.640 retired in n so he lived to see the Nazis 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:52.839 purge Germany of Jewish mathematicians and physicists, and was later 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.760 asked at a state dinner. He was actually asked a 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.480 question about what was the state of mathematics after it 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.880 had been quote unquote free of Jewish influence, and his 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.360 response was, there's no study of mathematics anymore. He was 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.600 essentially saying that the actions of the Nazis had effectively 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.320 into the entire field because they had they had removed 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.720 or or had caused to flee all of the leading 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:23.280 thinkers and instead, including like Einstein. So they were turning 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.160 mathematics and science into a political thing, and by doing that, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.360 they were saying that these other things that did not 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.000 fit that political regime as invalid. And that's not the 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.640 way science works, not the way mathematics works, but that's 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.000 how we're demanding it. It can be a very effective 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.240 means of controlling a population by controlling their education. Sure, 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:47.120 but also it also ends up meaning that you really you, 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.719 you just throw a huge monkey wrench into any kind 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.880 of advancement in those fields. So before World War two, 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.040 this is this is all happening before World War two, 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.640 and Heisenberg is studying under these different professors, so during 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.400 these years he has the ability to really pursue his 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:10.640 interests in theoretical physics and mathematics. So, uh, this was 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.280 on the in the nineteen twenties, and so it was 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.439 before even the Third Wreck was coming into power at all, right, Right, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.760 So that these are in the years between World War 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.240 One and the Nazis rise to power. So during those years, 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.240 that's when Heisenberg was studying. And while many of his 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.400 professors would end up having to flee or would be 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.400 removed from their jobs, at this time none of that 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.960 was necessarily evident that that was going to happen, So 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.000 he spent his time really talking with some of the 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.760 leading thinkers of the day when it comes to theoretical 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.720 physics and mathematics, right um so Ine he earned his 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.320 PhD from the University of Munich and um went to 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.200 become an assistant to his old professor Maxi Born at 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:55.240 the University of getting In and so in four he 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.360 would go to the University of Copenhagen and begin work 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:04.080 with Niels Henrik David Bore, who was Danish, not German, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.640 but a Danish physicist and uh and of course he 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.120 was really interested in atomic radiation and atomic structure, and 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.560 we talked about the Boor model of the atom earlier 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:18.880 in the podcast um so. In nineteen six Heisenberg would 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:20.960 go to the University of Copenhagen for about a year 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.440 and then leave. But in ninety six there was a 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.600 position opening opening up at the University of Copenhagen for 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:32.720 a lecturer in theoretical physics. So Boor recommended Heisenberg, thinking 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.200 that Heisenberg was an up and coming leader in this space, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.680 and so Heisenberg became the lecturer and theoretical physics at 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:44.560 the University of Copenhagen. Bore himself would be at Copenhagen 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.080 for quite some time until nineteen forty three, where he 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:52.440 would eventually flee to Sweden to escape the Nazis. Nineteen five, 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.320 that's when Heisenberg publishes his theory of quantum mechanics. So 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.160 he was of the ripe old age of twin d 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:05.600 three years old, twenty three years old, and he is uh, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:10.880 he is he is presenting a completely um well, he's 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.800 presenting his own, his own perspective on what quantum mechanics 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.080 actually is. As we'll see, that ends up getting kind 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:23.320 of assimilated into a unified view by looking at some 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.800 some other theories that Heisenberg did not necessarily agree with 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.480 at the time. Nope, not so much at all. As 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.080 it turns out, physicists, like any other type of human being, 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:38.280 can occasionally get very married to specific ideas and maybe 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.240 a little bit snarky. Yeah, there's some there's some great 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.680 quotes that will be reading. Yeah, but yeah, it turns 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:49.920 out that not everybody agreed on the behavior of particles 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.320 at that level because they were first of all, there 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.120 was no way to really directly observe them, so it's 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.160 all hypothetical, and it was mostly things like your equations 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.400 are are not as easy to understand my equations, therefore 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.000 my equations are better. That kind of thing. In fact, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.280 that really is one of the arguments. So in n seven, 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.520 at the age of twenty six, you know, he's he's 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.680 definitely hitting that that middle age there for physicists. Twenty 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.200 six years old, he becomes the professor of theoretical physics 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.359 at the University of Leipsig and this made him the 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.640 youngest full professor in Germany at the time. Yeah, so 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.280 he was certainly making a name for himself in the 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.320 in the academic world. In nineteen nine he goes on 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.280 a lecture tour of the United States and Japan and India, 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.639 uh and in nineteen thirty two he received the Nobel 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.760 Prize in Physics for his discovery of the allotropic forms 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.560 of hydrogen. It was is for from that paper that 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.119 he had published about quantum mechanics. Out of that, one 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.880 of the applications was this discovery. Right. So, in case 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.679 you're wondering what the heck is an allotrope, it's a 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.159 different structural modification of an element. So let's take carbon. 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.760 Carbon is a great example. When you have a certain 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.000 structure of carbon, it forms graphite. Different structure of carbon 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.760 forms diamond too, slightly different substances. Yeah, these these different 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:17.560 these different manifestations of the same element. I mean, it's 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.639 it's the exact same element, it's just the way that 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.000 it's been or the way that it arranges itself determines 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.600 its qualities. And graphite and diamond are like nine day 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.480 they're incredibly different. So that's what an allotrope is is 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.000 these different manifestations of an element that have very different qualities. 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:41.240 With the case of hydrogen, we're talking about ortho hydrogen 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.320 and parahydrogen. Don't ask me what that actually means, because 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.000 I'm not a physicist or a chemist, so I am 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.600 incapable of answering me neither. I am. I'm at a 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.080 loss there, but I do know that In ninety seven, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.439 Heisenberg married Elizabeth Schumacher, who he would go on to 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.440 have seven children with over the course of their marriage. Wow. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.159 Now this is also the time when we're starting to 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.720 see the Nazis come into power in World War Two 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.159 is beginning, uh, and this was this becomes a pretty 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:15.560 muddy area of Heisenberg's life because it's hard to know 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.679 which historical records are the most accurate. Right, There's there's 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.919 a lot of contention within the historical community about um 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:28.720 what exactly Heisenberg's personal views and u and roles were 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.840 in In all of this, he had become the target 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:39.240 of of Johannes Stark. Na, I'm just er apologize our English. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.680 Our English pronunciation in German pronunciation are different and and 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.760 and to be fair, the vocal downside of my family 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:50.040 is is really more like Polish Russian. So Johannes Stark 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.080 was also a physicist, but he was and he was 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.560 a physicist in fact, who in his UH in the 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.920 twenties had published a paper by Einstein. He had act 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.840 um Uh solicited Einstein to write a paper for the 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.520 publication that he was editing, and it was a publication 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:12.680 that would eventually lead Einstein to ruminate upon the general 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.600 theory of relativity. It was sort of a kind of 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.359 a precursor to his general theory, which meant that in 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.959 a way, Johannes Stark was very much part of what 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.800 made Einstein a worldwide phenomenon. Now, the reason why I 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.120 say that's really interesting, or perhaps he might even say ironic, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.480 is that Johannes Stark would align himself with the Nazi regime. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.320 He wanted essentially to be the fewer of physics, which 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.320 is that's I mean, that's exactly the way I saw 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.639 it worded when I was reading the biography, which is 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:50.280 kind of terrifying. But he he also aligned himself with 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:54.560 the Deutsche Physics movement, the the German physics movement, and 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.800 he said that because Heisenberg continued to teach Einstein's theories 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.199 and the classroom in Einstein's theories, of course we're not 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.639 part of this Deutsche physics, uh movement, that he was 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.200 what what Stark would call a white Jew or an 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.560 arian Jew, someone who is not Jewish by heritage, but 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.160 is by association, because he continues to teach these thoughts 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.760 that Jewish mathematicians and physicists had come up with, so 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.320 that somehow that meant that he was a traitor. Yes, so, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:32.240 um So Stark was very much opposed to Heisenberg and 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.280 didn't feel that Heisenberg should should have any sort of 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.040 position of authority. That did not stop Heisenberg from having 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:44.080 that position. He was obviously very important to the university 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.880 and was one of the few protected. Of course, part 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:48.640 of it was that he did not actually have any 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.040 Jewish ancestry that anyone could determine, so that kept him 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:56.320 somewhat safe, right sure, um you know, there's part of 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.119 the debate about Heisenberg is whether or not he um 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:04.440 he stayed in order to uh to help preserve Germany's 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.159 scientific and cultural communities, or whether he was actually working 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.199 for the Nazi Party. Um he he was made the 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.960 director of the German Adam bomb project and spent about 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.159 five years working on that, supposedly, during which another portion 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.600 of the debate is whether he was working towards a 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.480 nuclear reactor or nuclear weapons, and no one is really 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.560 entirely sure. Supposedly he gave a report to Nazi official 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.040 Albert spear Um that as of one or so, it 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.280 would take three or four years for them to build 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.440 a nuclear weapon and that that is part of why 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.240 the Nazi Party said, I'll forget this nuclear weapon thing, 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:47.240 let's go with nuclear reactors to help drive Sure, um 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:52.880 and uh so, but but you know, that's that's There's 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.760 been other research. Um. For for example, one Paul Lawrence 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.880 Rose wrote an entire book called Heisenberg and the Nazi 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.720 Stomic Bomb Project that stated that, uh, Heisenberg wasn't being 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.080 evasive to the Nazi Party, that rather, he was being 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.000 truthful due to a basic misunderstanding of the way that 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.000 nuclear fission worked, and that by the time he figured 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:17.080 it out, it was when the war was already winding 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:20.119 down and he started to hear about the atrocities that 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:24.959 the Nazi Party had committed and kind of reactively recreated 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.359 this image of himself as as having been an anti 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:30.800 Nazi the entire time. And that's the thing is that 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.040 it's it's impossible for us to say one way or 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.560 the other because there are conflicting reports and and really 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.280 it's you know, it's just it's a it's a difficult thing. Again. 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:43.800 Once again, we take our our our podcasting hats off 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:46.280 to our sister podcast Stuff you missed in history class 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:48.080 that deals with this kind of stuff all the time. 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.040 Oh sure, and and especially you know, everything surrounding the 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:53.720 Nazi Party is incredibly sticky. Um. You know, some some 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.520 of my favorite favorite stories about that time or stuff 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.240 like like like like Lenie Reefinstahl, who was one of 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:04.439 the who was the propagandist or a documentary filmmaker for 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.920 the Nazi Party, And I mean she she took tea 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:10.800 with Hitler frequently and has claimed forever that she never 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:13.600 knew about the atrocities that were going on. And so 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:16.119 it's it's it's one of those things like who do 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.119 you believe? Yeah, and uh yeah, getting back into into 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.840 the what Heisenberg was going through at this time. So 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.080 there is there's an argument to be made that he 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:32.280 was trying to preserve the scientific community in Germany as 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:34.440 best he could, because there were others who were also 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.720