Physicist · 1901 – 1976
Werner Heisenberg
Little-Known Facts
- Heisenberg conceived a key step toward matrix mechanics while recovering from hay fever on the North Sea island of Helgoland.
- His 1941 wartime visit to Niels Bohr in occupied Copenhagen inspired Michael Frayn's acclaimed play Copenhagen.
Myths & Misconceptions
Does the uncertainty principle mean measurement clumsiness?
No. It expresses a fundamental limit built into nature itself: certain pairs of properties, such as position and momentum, cannot both have definite values at once.