Werner Heisenberg Quotes

A collection of quotes by Werner Heisenberg.

Werner Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to the field of quantum mechanics. He was born on December 5, 1901, in Würzburg, Germany. Heisenberg pursued his education at the University of Munich and the University of Göttingen, where he studied under renowned physicists like Arnold Sommerfeld and Max Born.

In 1925, Heisenberg published his groundbreaking paper introducing matrix mechanics, a new formulation of quantum mechanics. This work laid the foundation for a new understanding of atomic and subatomic phenomena, challenging classical physics. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, formulated in 1927, became one of his most notable contributions. It states that the more precisely one tries to measure the position of a particle, the less precisely one can know its momentum, and vice versa.

During World War II, Heisenberg was involved in Germany's atomic energy project, known as the Uranium Club. He served as the head of the project and proposed different designs for a nuclear reactor and an atomic bomb. However, the project did not succeed in developing a functional atomic weapon before the end of the war.

After the war, Heisenberg played a key role in rebuilding the scientific community in Germany and worked towards reestablishing international collaborations. He received numerous awards for his contributions, including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for the creation of quantum mechanics.

Werner Heisenberg passed away on February 1, 1976, in Munich, Germany, leaving behind a profound legacy in the field of quantum physics.

Revere those things beyond science which really matter and a

Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.

Werner Heisenberg


The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

Werner Heisenberg

Religion Science Atheism

The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be di

The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear, we would probably be left completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies.

Werner Heisenberg

Science Knowledge Philosophy Unknowing

Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stran

Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.

Werner Heisenberg

Reality Science Physics Strange Particles Quantum

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.

Werner Heisenberg

Science Language Favors

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg

Nature

The violent reaction on the recent development of modern phy

The violent reaction on the recent development of modern physics can only be understood when one realises that here the foundations of physics have started moving and that this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cut from science.

Werner Heisenberg

Science

Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature

Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.

Werner Heisenberg

Nature