The part and the whole

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The part and the whole is a book written by the German physicist and Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg with autobiographical features , in which he describes the development through the reproduction of many conversations he had, in particular with Niels Bohr , Wolfgang Pauli , Albert Einstein and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker the quantum mechanics and atomic physics traces and discusses the possibility related philosophical, religious and political issues.

The book The Part and the Whole has the subtitle “Conversations in the Circumstances of Atomic Physics” and was published in 1969 by R. Piper & Co. Verlag in Munich. In November 2002 the 8th edition was published as a paperback. The work belongs to the ZEIT library of 100 non-fiction books .

Table of contents of the book

The book is divided into the following twenty chapters:

  1. First encounter with atomic theory (1919–1920)
  2. The decision to study physics (1920)
  3. The term "understanding" in modern physics (1920 to 1922)
  4. Instruction in politics and history (1922-1924)
  5. Quantum Mechanics and a Conversation with Einstein (1925–1926)
  6. Departure for the new country (1926–1927)
  7. First discussions about the relationship between science and religion (1927)
  8. Atomic physics and pragmatic thinking (1929)
  9. Conversations about the relationship between biology, physics and chemistry (1930–1932)
  10. Quantum Mechanics and Kantian Philosophy (1930–1932)
  11. Discussions about the language (1933)
  12. Revolution and University Life (1933)
  13. Discussions about the possibilities of atomic technology and about elementary particles (1935–1937)
  14. The Action of Individuals in a Political Catastrophe (1937–1941)
  15. The way to a new beginning (1941–1945)
  16. On the responsibility of the researcher (1945–1950)
  17. Positivism, Metaphysics and Religion (1952)
  18. Controversy in politics and science (1956–1957)
  19. The unified field theory (1957-1958)
  20. Elementary Particles and Platonic Philosophy (1961–1965)

from the content

After Werner Heisenberg had justified his turn to physics, he reported on the Arnold Sommerfeld seminar and his first meeting with Wolfgang Pauli, who was already Sommerfeld's student. In a conversation between these two with Otto Laporte , who is also studying there, the concept of understanding in physics, especially with regard to the new quantum mechanics, is philosophized. Laporte jokes: "Philosophy is the systematic abuse of a nomenclature specially invented for this purpose".

Then there is talk of a first meeting in 1922 with Niels Bohr in Göttingen , which was of great importance for Heisenberg's further development. In the same year, Heisenberg meets Albert Einstein in Leipzig, who is skeptical of quantum mechanics by asking what the atom does when it changes from one quantum state to another. Erwin Schrödinger believed he could later eliminate these discontinuities, rejected by Einstein, with his wave mechanics, since quantum physics is described by a differential equation , namely the Schrödinger equation later named after him . However, this was not confirmed; the interpretation of the solutions to this equation , which goes back to Max Born , as densities of residence probabilities prevailed.

Werner Heisenberg at the Solvay Conference in 1927

In the seventh chapter, Einstein 's skepticism, expressed at the Solvay Conference in 1927, against this probability interpretation and the uncertainty relation found by Heisenberg is deepened. His famous saying " God does not roll the dice " gives rise to a discussion about religion. Heisenberg takes the view that God can only be seen here as a metaphor for the laws of nature, since Einstein's belief in a personal God is alien. After Paul Dirac had taken a rigorous atheist position, Pauli resolved the situation with the joke: "There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet". This topic is taken up again in a later conversation with Bohr and Heisenberg mentions “that the incomplete determination in atomic physics is occasionally used as an argument that space has now again been created for the free will of the individual and also space for God's intervention ".

Before Heisenberg accepted the call to the University of Leipzig in 1927 , he undertook a trip to America, during which there were discussions about the nature of physical theories; their applicability in a clearly defined area of ​​experience and the simplicity of the theoretical axiomatics are emphasized. A subsequent conversation with Bohr about these topics ends with his famous saying “The opposite of a correct claim is a false claim. But the opposite of a deep truth can again be a deep truth ”.

In the following chapter, Heisenberg philosophizes with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker on Kant's epistemology . The necessity of an a priori given causality and the lack of a cause for a single act of decay in radioactive decay , justified by Kant, lead to a discussion about the completeness of the quantum mechanical description.

After a discourse on the role of language and the discovery of the positron , Heisenberg turned to the era of National Socialism . In a conversation with a National Socialist-minded student, Heisenberg worked out his own negative position. On the occasion of the release of the mathematician Friedrich Wilhelm Levi in Leipzig Heisenberg discusses with Max Planck on the potential effect of a collective resignation of some faculty colleagues including Friedrich Hund , Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer and Bartel Leendert van der Waerden . Planck advised against resigning, as this would not be noticed in public, and spoke of the task of forming "islands of existence" within Germany to train young physicists for the time after the disaster. Heisenberg also adopted this view and therefore stayed in Leipzig.

Werner Heisenberg (left) and Niels Bohr (right)

In 1935 there was a conversation with Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford about the possibility of nuclear technology. At this time, people are still skeptical, as too much energy would be required for proton acceleration to achieve an overall positive energy balance. Heisenberg and his student Hans Euler dealt with the then current topics of antiparticles and electron-positron generation .

On the occasion of a chamber concert in 1937 Heisenberg met his future wife Elisabeth Schuhmacher. He then reports on the worsening situation in Germany. In 1939 he went on another trip to America, during which he spoke with Enrico Fermi about his motives for returning to Germany. He couldn't leave his students in the lurch.

In Germany, they move to the Army Weapons Office . Together with von Weizsäcker, there is a concentration on energy production, the construction of a bomb, however, would require larger amounts of uranium-235 and an isotope separation of this size was considered technically impossible. In 1941, however, it was already clear within the so-called Uranium Association that a bomb could be built in principle, just not in the foreseeable future. In autumn 1941 Heisenberg met again with Bohr in Copenhagen and tried to suggest this position of the Uranium Association. Bohr is so shocked by the possibility of an atomic bomb that parts of Heisenberg's hints go unheard.

Heisenberg experienced the end of the war with his family in Urfeld , where he was captured and brought to Farm Hall , where he met with many colleagues from Germany, including Otto Hahn , Max von Laue , Walther Gerlach , Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Karl Wirtz . When one learns about the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , there is a discussion about the guilt of the physicists. Heisenberg says of Hahn's role, about whom one worries: “If Hahn hadn't found the fission of uranium, Fermi or Joliot might have come across this phenomenon a few years later .” Heisenberg draws attention to the accusation that was made against the American physicists the following comparison with the German physicists: “I don't know whether we can even use the word reproach in this context. Probably we were just more lucky at this one point than our friends on the other side of the ocean. "

Chapter 17 gives a discussion between Pauli, Bohr and Heisenberg about positivism , metaphysics and religion. Heisenberg evades the direct question of belief in a personal God by speaking of the “central order of things and events”, but sees the values ​​of the western world anchored in Christianity.

In the following chapter, in addition to the physical work, the political debate in relation to a possible nuclear armament of the Federal Republic is in the foreground, the coming about of the call of the Göttingen eighteen and Heisenberg's relationship with the then Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is reported.

The book closes with the reproduction of conversations and correspondence, especially with Pauli, about the unified field theory and symmetries , as well as philosophical conversations with von Weizsäcker about the laws of nature and the role of chance in the development of the cosmos and life.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ISBN 3-492-22297-8
  2. ↑ as part of Operation Epsilon

literature

  • Werner Heisenberg: The part and the whole , R. Piper & Co. Verlag (1969)