in reply to Re^5: Organizational Culture (Part VII): Science in thread Organizational Culture (Part VII): Science
> that's why he wasn't awarded the NP for RT. Too many felt that "bending space and time" was obviously too absurd to survive further scrutiny.
> Don't forget that Einstein's position to Quantum Theory was comparable. He didn't deny the results but opposed the statistical model. "God does not play dice" ! ;)
Curiously, despite Quantum Theory out-weirding Relativity, the 1932 Nobel Prize
was awarded to Werner Heisenberg for the creation of Quantum mechanics!
Maybe the general tolerance of weirdness within the Nobel committee had softened by then.
Heisenberg was nominated for the Nobel prize by ... Einstein! ... which I felt showed great character,
given his deeply held "God does not play dice" views.
The infamous Bohr-Einstein debates, though insanely intense at times,
were also carried out in great spirit by both men.
Though Erwin Schrodinger also won a Nobel prize
for his famous wave equation (developed
during a romantic tryst on a skiing holiday), I was disappointed the committee didn't award him another for inventing
Schrodinger's Cat. :)
BTW, Schrodinger and Einstein shared a similar extreme discomfort with QM and seemed to be allies during
the many heated QM debates of the 1930s.
My favourite Nobel prize story though is
J J Thomson
winning the 1906 Nobel prize for proving the electron is a particle
and his son G P Thomson winning the 1937 Nobel prize for proving it's a wave! :)
This was the golden age of physics LanX and all played out in your backyard!
As a physics nut, I'm extremely envious because I'd love to visit Germany one day to tour all these historic sites ...
including Heligoland where Heisenberg formulated Quantum Mechanics -- have you ever been there?
I find it interesting that the two biggest QM breakthroughs, by Heisenberg and Schrodinger, were both made while on holiday.
Re^7: Organizational Culture (Part VII): Science
by jdporter (Paladin) on Sep 21, 2021 at 14:17 UTC
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I find it interesting that the two biggest QM breakthroughs, by Heisenberg and Schrodinger, were both made while on holiday.
I'm reminded of another revolutionary innovation made under such circumstances: the penning of Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley.
It was written in Geneva, but was inspired by
German ghost stories,
visits to sites in Germany (such as the town near Frankenstein Castle),
and current topics in science and pseudo-science.
Furthermore, climateology and geology played a role: the party were hunkered down in Byron's place in Geneva
during the year without a summer, due mainly to
the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, which caused a "volcanic winter".
I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon staffed with 16,000 zombies.
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Re^7: Organizational Culture (Part VII): Science
by LanX (Saint) on Sep 18, 2021 at 11:44 UTC
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> This was the golden age of physics LanX and all played out in your backyard!
Yes the Nobel prize was mostly a German party till the 50s. Mainly because much of modern universities and education were invented by the Humboldts. Plus the polycentric structure of central Europe where each little sovereign needed at least one academy, (my region alone has maybe a dozen "capitals"). This created a very fertile ground for science and technology in the 19th century.
Britain in contrast centralized most in "Oxbridge", with classical colleges concentrating on law and theology.
> As a physics nut, I'm extremely envious because I'd love to visit Germany one day to tour all these historic sites ...
I'm afraid there is not that much to see.
I was once in Göttingen visiting a friend studying there. It's a very nice students town, but couldn't spot any boxes filled with semi-dead cats tho.
Unfortunately I needed a train to get there, the wormholes were out of service.
> including Heligoland where Heisenberg formulated Quantum Mechanics -- have you ever been there?
No, and unlikely I ever will.
It's Germany's only "real" island in the very north 40km off shore and tiny. One can go there by ship to buy tax free and enjoy local folklore fostered for tourism, but I never was much of a shanty singer.
Tho the Brits had a famous big bang experiment there, I might go to watch a rerun ...
> I find it interesting that the two biggest QM breakthroughs, by Heisenberg and Schrodinger, were both made while on holiday.
Theoretical Physics like Mathematics mainly happen inside tormented heads trying hard to find solutions and fighting against blockades.
Stories from revelations while relaxing in the nature are plenty, I somehow remember a cartoon showing Poincare (?) making a discovery while cutting trees.°
update
Hey... you can meet and "get physical" with Olivia Newton-John in your "backyard"! Just realized her mother was born Born ... ;-)
Update
°) Turns out that Poincaré published about such kind of subconscious creativity to solve problems in your sleep. | [reply] |
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Very interesting!
World Class physicists are extremely rare on this side of the planet. :(
Australia had Mark Oliphant during WW2 and claims Dark Energy discoverer and Nobel Prize winner Brian Schmidt,
even though he was born and raised in USA.
I'll give the Kiwis the legendary Ernest Rutherford, though his nationality was officially British.
> Britain in contrast centralized most in "Oxbridge"
Some prominent Oxbridge physicists:
Heisenberg developed Matrix mechanics.
Schrödinger developed Wave mechanics.
Dirac showed they were equivalent. And predicted antimatter.
Dirac was quite a character, excruciatingly awkward in social situations.
His Cambridge friends defined a unit called a "dirac", one word per hour.
I love the way he criticised J. Robert Oppenheimer's interest in poetry:
"The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible." :)
> you can meet and "get physical" with Olivia Newton-John in your "backyard"! Just realized her mother was born Born
Max Born was her grandfather. Wow, that's a huge surprise!
Schrödinger hated Matrix mechanics so intensely that he spoiled a romantic getaway inventing
Wave mechanics.
Matrices are rarely used in Physics, so most working physicists gleefully switched to the Schrödinger wave equation.
Though it worked well, nobody knew what was actually waving, how to interpret Psi?
Schrödinger tried to interpret its modulus squared as a charge density, but was unsuccessful.
When it was later successfully interpreted (by Max Born!) as the probability amplitude,
Schrödinger was horrified, saying later "I do not like quantum mechanics, and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it". :)
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> Some prominent Oxbridge physicists:
to avoid misunderstandings, I didn't say there aren't. Just that German (speaking) universities had much more diversity and competition in the 19th century, which played well into the 20th.
Update
To keep this in context, "Germany" (i.e. Greater Prussia) was only united in 1871 and still was a very federalist construct with multiple kings and dukes.
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> Dirac was quite a character, excruciatingly awkward ... one word per hour.
Apparently he was quite vocal in religious matters.
According to Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli said once:
> Es gibt keinen Gott und Dirac ist sein Prophet. (There is no God and Dirac is his Prophet.)
xD
There are plenty of funny anecdotes surrounding these blokes, they've spend often time together on conferences or traveling.
FWIW The University Göttingen lists Dirac among "their" 40 Nobel laureates because of his frequent visits. (Success is sexy ;)
Needless to mention that most leaders of the Manhatten project where former PhD students or assistants of Max Born in Göttingen, including Oppenheimer and Teller.
Steven Hawkings is another generation, I read his bestselling book and hope he was a better physicist than author.
At least he made it into an episode of Star Trek and he's often referenced in the Big Bang Theory.
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> booze rock
Nordic priorities ;-P
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