Helmut Rechenberg

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Helmut Rechenberg (born November 6, 1937 in Berlin ; † November 10, 2016 in Munich ) was a German physicist and science historian.

Rechenberg studied mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Munich and graduated with a diploma in 1964. He began as a physicist with experimental work on magnetism and came to the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich in 1964 , where he received his doctorate in theoretical physics on quantum field theory under Werner Heisenberg ( on the interaction of self-coupled spinor fields in two space-time dimensions ). From 1970 to 1972 he worked at the University of Texas at Austin with Jagdish Mehra . After returning from the USA, he continued his research at the Max Planck Institute for Physics.

He worked several times as a visiting professor a. a. at the Universities of Geneva , Brussels and Krakow (mid-1970s to mid-1980s) and in 1990 at Northwestern University in Evanston (Illinois) and in Kyoto . In 2002 he officially retired.

Rechenberg was one of the leading historians of quantum theory, nuclear physics and elementary particle physics. Together with Jagdish Mehra he wrote a 6-volume standard work on the history of quantum mechanics. He also dealt intensively with Werner Heisenberg (whose last doctoral student he was). Rechenberg acted as co-editor of Werner Heisenberg's collected works and from 1977 headed the Werner Heisenberg Archive. Furthermore, his two-volume Heisenberg biography was published in 2010.

From 1991 to 2006 he was also a board member of the Association of the History of Physics of the German Physical Society (DPG).

Fonts

  • Werner Heisenberg - The Language of Atoms , 2 volumes, Springer 2010
  • with Jagdish Mehra: The historical development of quantum theory , Springer, several volumes, 1982, 1987, 2001, 2002:
    • Vol. 1 (in 2 parts): The quantum theory of Einstein, Bohr, Planck and Sommerfeld 1900-1925 - its foundation and the rise of its difficulties , 1982
    • Vol. 2: The discovery of quantum mechanics 1925, 1982
    • Vol. 3 The formulation of matrix mechanics and its modifications 1925-1926 , 1982
    • Vol. 4 Fundamental equations of quantum mechanics - reception of the new quantum mechanics , 1982
    • Vol. 5: Erwin Schrödinger and the rise of wave mechanics , 1987 (Part 1: Schrödinger in Wien and Zürich 1887-1925 , Part 2: The creation of wave mechanics. Early response and applications 1925-1926 )
    • Vol. 6: The completion of quantum mechanics 1926-1941 , part 1: The probability interpretation and the statistical transformation theory, the physical interpretation, and the empirical and mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, 1926-1932 , 2000, part 2: The conceptual completion and the extensions of quantum mechanics, 1932-1941. Epilogue: Aspects of the further development of quantum theory, 1942-1999 , 2001
  • with Laurie Brown : Origin of the concept of nuclear forces , Taylor and Francis 1996
  • Hermann von Helmholtz - Pictures of his Life and Work , Wiley-VCH, Weinheim / New York 1994, ISBN 3-527-29276-4 .
  • with Gerald Wiemers (Hrsg.): Werner Heisenberg reports and examination protocols 1929-1942 , Berlin, ERS Verlag 2001.
  • Editor: Werner Heisenberg. German and Jewish Physics , Piper 1992
  • The Farm Hall Reports, a Commentary (Preface). In: Farm Hall Reports. The intercepted conversations of the German nuclear scientists interned in England in 1945/46. Hirzel, Stuttgart, 1994.
  • The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt / Federal Institute 1887–1987. An overview , PTB, Braunschweig 1993.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Aderholz, Allen Caldwell, Wolfgang Hollik, Wolfgang Ochs: In memory of Helmut Rechenberg . In: Physics Journal . tape 16 , no. 2 , 2017, p. 50 .
personal data
SURNAME Rechenberg, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 2016
Place of death Munich