Erwin Schrödinger
Schrödinger (Schrodinger) Erwin (1887-1961), Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, foreign corresponding member (1928) and foreign honorary member (1934) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Developed (1926) so-called. wave mechanics, formulated its basic equation (the Schrödinger equation), proved its identity to the matrix version of quantum mechanics. Proceedings on crystallography, mathematical physics, theory of relativity, biophysics. Nobel Prize (1933, jointly with P. A. M. Dirac).
Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) - Austrian physicist, foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (since 1934), one of the founders of quantum mechanics. In 1926 he discovered the basic (so-called wave) equation of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's leading physical idea was the idea of matter waves. In the unified field theory and the generalized theory of gravitation, he tried to prove that the corpuscular structure of matter, its discontinuity are derivatives of its wave structure, of continuity. One of the most important merits of Schrödinger is an attempt (as opposed to vitalism) to materialistic interpretation of the phenomena of life from the point of view of physics. These ideas of Schrödinger have been fruitfully developed in modern molecular biology.
Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I.T. Frolova. M., 1991, p. 528.
Erwin Schrödinger (August 12, 1887, Vienna - January 4, 1961, ibid.) was an Austrian physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Graduated from the University of Vienna (1910). From 1911 he worked at the University of Vienna. In 1914-18 he fought on the Southern Front (near Trieste). In 1920-21 - professor at the Higher Technical School in Stuttgart and the University of Breslau, professor at the University of Zurich (1921-27), University of Berlin (1927-33). In 1933 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he was a professor at the College of St. Magdalen at Oxford (1933-36). In 1936 he returned to
home, was a professor at the University of Graz (1936-38). After the Anschluss of Austria by Germany, he was dismissed in March 1938 for political unreliability. Since 1938 again in exile; from October 1938 in Dublin, in 1941-55 - director of the Institute for Higher Studies in Dublin, from 1956 - professor at the University of Vienna. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1928), honorary member (1934).
Major works in the field of statistical physics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, biophysics. Developed wave mechanics (1926) - one of the forms of quantum mechanics (Nobel Prize, 1933), in 1926 showed its equivalence to the matrix mechanics of W. Heisenberg, M. Born, P. Jordan. When constructing wave mechanics, Schrödinger introduced the concept of a wave function (psi-function) - the fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, describing the state of a microparticle, and discovered the wave equation (Schrödinger equation) - the fundamental equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Schrödinger did not accept the indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics and, like Einstein, considered quantum mechanics to be an incomplete theory. Criticizing the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, he embodied its essence in the paradoxical form of "Schrödinger's cat", which, according to the quantum mechanical description, is both alive and dead at the same time with a certain probability. After emigrating to Ireland, Schrödinger worked actively in the field of gravity theory, meson theory, thermodynamics, Born-Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics, and tried to create a unified field theory.
In scientific research, Schrödinger was guided by the idea of the unity of the physical picture of the world, which manifested itself in the construction of wave mechanics, in which Schrödinger hoped to overcome the wave-particle dualism based on a wave description, and in later studies on a unified field theory. Schrödinger was not only a major theoretical physicist, but also an extraordinary thinker. In Greek, Chinese and Indian philosophy, he tried to "find the lost grains of wisdom" that would help overcome the crisis of the conceptual apparatus of the fundamental sciences and the split of modern knowledge into many separate disciplines. In 1944, Schrödinger published an original study at the intersection of physics and biology, "What is life from the point of view of physics?". In 1948 he read a course of lectures on Greek philosophy at University College London, which formed the basis of his book Nature and the Greeks (1954). He is concerned with the problem of the relationship between being and consciousness (“Spirit and Matter”, 1958), science and society (report at the Prussian Academy of Sciences “Is natural science conditioned by the environment?”, 1932; the book “Science and Humanism”, 1952). Schrödinger also discussed the problems of causality and the laws of nature (Theory of Science and Man, 1957; What is the Law of Nature?, 1962). In 1949 a collection of his poems was published.
Vya. P. Vizgin, K. A. Tomilin
New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. IV, p. 395-396.
Schrodinger, Erwin (1887-1961), Austrian physicist, creator of wave mechanics, Nobel Prize in Physics 1933 (together with P. Dirac). Born August 12, 1887 in Vienna. In 1910 he graduated from the University of Vienna, but his career in physics began only after the end of military service in 1920. He worked at the University of Vienna and Jena, in 1920-1921 - professor at the Higher Technical School in Stuttgart and Breslau (now Wroclaw), in 1921 - Higher Technical School in Zurich. In 1927, after retiring, M. Planck received the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, he left the department. In 1933-1935 - professor at Oxford University, in 1936-1938 - the University of Graz, in 1940 - professor at the Royal Academy in Dublin, then director of the Institute of Higher Studies founded by him. In 1956 he returned to Austria and until the end of his life remained a professor at the University of Vienna.
The main works of Schrodinger belong to the field of statistical physics, quantum theory, quantum mechanics, and biophysics. Based on L. de Broglie's hypothesis about waves of matter and Hamilton's principle, he developed the theory of motion of subatomic particles - wave mechanics, introducing a wave function (Y-function) to describe the state of these particles. He derived the basic equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (the Schrödinger equation) and gave its solution for frequent cases. Established the connection between wave mechanics and matrix mechanics Heisenberg and proved their physical identity.
However, Schrödinger, like Einstein, did not consider quantum theory complete. He was not satisfied with the dual description of subatomic objects as waves and particles and the probabilistic nature of all the predictions of quantum mechanics, and he tried to construct a theory solely in terms of waves. Schrödinger's thought experiment, which he proposed to illustrate his doubts about the purely probabilistic nature of quantum mechanical theory, is widely known. Let's say that the cat is sitting in a sealed box, where some kind of deadly device is installed. The cat dies or stays alive, depending on whether, at a certain point in time, the radioactive capsule emits a particle that powers the device. After a given time, the cat will actually be either dead or alive. Therefore, quantum mechanical predictions must represent something more than the "observation probability" of the relevant events.
Schrödinger's further studies were devoted to the theory of mesons, thermodynamics, and the general theory of relativity. He repeatedly tried to construct a unified field theory. Schrödinger also showed great interest in biology. In 1943 his famous popular book was published. What is life? (What is Life?). In it, he tried to use physical approaches and concepts to solve the problems of the living, in particular, to establish the nature of genes. This book had a noticeable impact on the post-war generation of molecular biologists and biophysicists, among whom were J. Watson and F. Crick, the creators of the double helix model of DNA.
Materials of the encyclopedia "The world around us" are used.
Schrödinger Erwin
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger was born on August 12, 1887 in Vienna. His father, Rudolf Schrödinger, was the owner of an oilcloth factory. Erwin received his primary education at home. In 1898, Schrödinger entered the Academic Gymnasium. In 1906 he entered the University of Vienna. Having defended his doctoral dissertation in 1910, Schrödinger became an assistant to the experimental physicist Franz Exner at the 2nd Physics Institute at the University of Vienna. In 1913, Schrödinger and K.W.F. Kohlrausch receive the Heitinger Prize of the Imperial Academy of Sciences for experimental research on radium.
In 1920, Schrödinger went to Germany, where he became an adjunct professor at the Stuttgart University of Technology. After one semester, he leaves Stuttgart and briefly takes up a professorship in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). Schrödinger then moves to Switzerland and becomes a full professor there. He made an attempt to apply the wave description of electrons to the construction of a consistent quantum theory, not related to Bohr's inadequate model of the atom. He intended to bring quantum theory closer to classical physics, which has accumulated many examples of the mathematical description of waves. The first attempt, made by Schrödinger in 1925, ended in failure. Schrödinger made his next attempt in 1926. It culminated in the derivation of the Schrödinger wave equation, which gives a mathematical description of matter in terms of the wave function. Schrödinger called his theory wave mechanics. The solutions of the wave equation were in agreement with experimental observations.
Schrödinger showed that wave mechanics and matrix mechanics are mathematically equivalent. Known today under the general name of quantum mechanics, these two theories provided a common basis for describing quantum phenomena. In 1927, Schrödinger, at the invitation of Planck, became his successor at the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin.
In 1933, Schrödinger and Dirac were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Along with Einstein and de Broglie, Schrödinger was among the opponents of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics because he was repelled by its lack of determinism. The Copenhagen interpretation is based on the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, according to which the position and velocity of a particle cannot be known exactly at the same time.
In 1933, the scientist left the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin. From Germany, Schrödinger went to Oxford.
In 1936, Schrödinger accepted the offer and became a professor at the University of Graz in Austria, but in 1938, after the annexation of Austria by Germany, he was forced to leave this post as well, fleeing to Italy. Then he moved to Ireland, where he became professor of theoretical physics at the Dublin Institute for Basic Research and remained in this post for seventeen years. Schrödinger wrote several philosophical studies in Dublin. Reflecting on the problems of applying physics to biology, he put forward the idea of a molecular approach to the study of genes, setting it out in the book What is Life? Physical Aspects of the Living Cell (1944). Schrödinger also published a volume of his poetry.
In 1956 he accepted the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Vienna. He retired in 1958, at the age of seventy-one, and died three years later, on January 4, 1961, in Vienna.
Schrödinger was awarded the Matteucci gold medal of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck medal of the German Physical Society, and was awarded the Order of Merit by the German government. Schrödinger was an honorary doctor of the universities of Ghent, Dublin and Edinburgh, was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the Berlin Academy of Sciences, the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Dublin Academy of Sciences and the Madrid Academy of Sciences.
Website material used http://100top.ru/encyclopedia/
Read further:
Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).
Compositions:
Abhandlungen zur Wellenmechanik. Lpz., 1928;
Gedichte. Bonn, 1949; Space Time Structure. Cambr., 1950;
Expanding Universe. Cambr., 1956;
Fav. works on quantum mechanics. M., 1976;
New paths in physics. M., 1971;
What is life? M., 1972
What is life in terms of physics? M., 1947;
Statistical thermodynamics. M., 1948;
Space-time structure of the Universe. M., 1986;
My worldview. - "VF", 1994, No. 8, 10.
Literature:
Scott W. T. Erwin Schrodinger. Amherst, 1967; Malinovsky A. A. Afterword. - In the book: Schrödinger E. What is life? M., 1947;
HoffmanD. Erwin Schrodinger. 50 years of quantum mechanics. M., 1979.
Jammer M. Evolution of the concepts of quantum mechanics. M., 1985
Austrian theoretical physicist.
Nobel Prize winner in physics.
Conclusion Erwin Schrödinger his equation was promoted by the hypothesis Louis de Broglie.
“By 1927, in quantum physics, there was a dramatic situation - it was a drama of ideas.
Schrödinger was convinced that the concept of continuous waves should be the basis for knowledge of quantum processes.
Heisenberg he was convinced of the opposite - the concept of discrete events, quantum jumps should be taken as the basis of the new quantum mechanics.
Both acted in accordance with the principle of reduction. Only Schrödinger sought to reduce everything to continuity, Heisenberg insisted on the possibility of reducing everything to discreteness.
Bor not could take either position.
He sought to build a quantum theory in such a way that both discrete and continuous processes organically entered the picture of natural processes.
Ovchinnikov N.F., Methodological principles in the history of scientific thought, M., Editorial URSS, 1997, p. 185-186.
«… Schrödinger settled in Dublin. In 1944, his book What is Life? is an exciting but unsuccessful attempt to apply quantum physics to living organisms. His ideas were based on the concept of "negentropy" - the tendency of a living thing not to obey the second law of thermodynamics (or somehow bypass its action). Schrodinger emphasized that the genes of living beings must be some kind of complex molecules containing encoded instructions. These molecules are now called DNA, but their structure was only discovered in 1953. Francis Crick and James Watson inspired - in part - by Schrödinger. In Ireland, Schrödinger did not change his free attitude towards sexuality, entering into relations with students and becoming the father of two children from different mothers.
Ian Stewart, Truth and Beauty: A World History of Symmetry, M., Astrel; Corpus, 2010, p. 318-319.
Erwin Schrödinger in the book: What is life, from the point of view of a physicist? “... showed that work against entropy cannot be done otherwise than by “consuming order”, i.e. at the cost of increasing the entropy of other systems. With external abundance, open non-equilibrium systems increase the volume of anti-entropy work, capturing the space of vital activity to the best of their ability. Sooner or later, extensive growth leads to the exhaustion of available resources - and as a result, a specific crisis in the relationship between the non-equilibrium system and the environment is exacerbated.
Panov A.D. , Invariants of universal evolution and evolution in the Multiverse, in Sat.: Universal evolutionism and global problems / Ed. editor: V.V. Kazyutinsky, E.A. Mamchur, M., IP RAS, 2007, p. 67.
“... There is a tendency to forget that all natural sciences are connected with a universal culture and that scientific discoveries, even those that seem at the moment the most advanced and accessible to the understanding of a select few, nevertheless meaningless outside their cultural context . That theoretical science that does not recognize that its constructions, the most relevant and most important, eventually serve to be included in concepts intended for reliable assimilation by the educated stratum of society and transformation into an organic part of the overall picture of the world; a theoretical science, I repeat, whose representatives inspire each other with ideas in a language that, at best, is understandable only to a small group of close fellow travelers - such a science will certainly break away from the rest of human culture; in the long run, it is doomed to impotence and paralysis, no matter how long this style continues and no matter how stubbornly this style is maintained for the elite, within these isolated groups, specialists.
Erwin Schrödinger, Are there quantum leaps? / Selected works on quantum mechanics, M., "Nauka", 1976, p. 261.
“We clearly feel that we are only now beginning to acquire reliable material in order to combine into one whole everything that we know, but, on the other hand, it becomes almost impossible for one mind to master more than any small special part of science. I do not see a way out of this situation ... unless some of us take the risk of undertaking a synthesis of facts and theories, although our knowledge in some of these areas will be in this case incomplete ... "
Erwin Schrodinger, What is life from the point of view of a physicist, M., Atomizdat, 1972, p. 10-11.
Erwin Schrödinger coined the term "objectivity of description", that is, the ability of a scientific theory to describe reality without observer links...
Erwin Schrödinger knew six languages.
I note that in the USSR a biologist A.A. Malinovsky(son A.A. Bogdanov) “... at his own risk he translated and published a small but remarkably deep book by one of the founders of quantum mechanics Erwin Schrödinger"What is life? From the point of view of a physicist, ”for which he was subjected to venomous abuse from Lysenko, was expelled from work, and only after three years of ordeals did the famous ophthalmologist Filatov in Odessa dare to take him to work.
Katsura A.V., In pursuit of a white sheet, M., "Rainbow", 2000, p. 189.
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger was born in Vienna. His father, Rudolf Schrödinger, was the owner of an oilcloth factory, was fond of painting and had a great interest in botany. An only child, Erwin received his primary education at home. His first teacher was his father, whom Schrödinger later referred to as "a friend, a teacher and an untiring companion." In 1898, Schrödinger entered the Academic Gymnasium, where he was the first student in Greek, Latin, classical literature, mathematics and physics. During his high school years, Schrödinger developed a love for the theatre.
In 1906 he entered the University of Vienna and the following year began attending lectures on physics by Friedrich Hasenerl, whose brilliant ideas made a deep impression on Erwin. Having defended his doctoral dissertation in 1910, Schrödinger became an assistant to the experimental physicist Franz Exner at the 2nd Physics Institute at the University of Vienna. He remained in this position until the beginning of the First World War. In 1913, Schrödinger and K. V. F. Kohlrausch received the Heitinger Prize of the Imperial Academy of Sciences for experimental studies of radium.
During the war, Schrödinger served as an artillery officer in a remote garrison located in the mountains, far from the front line. Using his spare time productively, he studied Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. After the end of the war, he returned to the 2nd Institute of Physics in Vienna, where he continued his research on general relativity, statistical mechanics (dealing with the study of systems consisting of a very large number of interacting objects, such as gas molecules) and X-ray diffraction. At the same time, Schrödinger conducts extensive experimental and theoretical research on color theory and color perception.
In 1920, Schrödinger went to Germany, where he became an assistant to Max Wien at the University of Jena, but four months later became an associate professor at the Technical University of Stuttgart. After one semester, he leaves Stuttgart and briefly takes up a professorship in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). Then Schrödinger moved to Switzerland and became a full professor there, as well as the successor of Einstein and Max von Laue at the Department of Physics at the University of Zurich. In Zurich, where Schrödinger remained from 1921 to 1927, he dealt mainly with thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and their application to explain the nature of gases and solids. Interested in a wide range of physical problems, he also followed the progress of quantum theory, but did not focus on this area until 1925, when Einstein's favorable review of Louis de Broglie's wave theory of matter appeared.
Quantum theory was born in 1900, when Max Planck proposed a theoretical conclusion about the relationship between the temperature of a body and the radiation emitted by this body, a conclusion that for a long time eluded other scientists. Like his predecessors, Planck suggested that atomic oscillators emit radiation, but At the same time, he believed that the energy of oscillators (and, consequently, the radiation emitted by them) exists in the form of small discrete portions, which Einstein called quanta. The energy of each quantum is proportional to the radiation frequency. Although Planck's formula was widely admired, the assumptions he made remained incomprehensible, as they contradicted classical physics. In 1905, Einstein used quantum theory to explain some aspects of the photoelectric effect - the emission of electrons from a metal surface that is exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Along the way, Einstein noted a seeming paradox: light, which had been known for two centuries to travel in continuous waves, could under certain circumstances behave like a stream of particles.
About eight years later, Niels Bohr extended quantum theory to the atom and explained the frequencies of the waves emitted by atoms excited in a flame or in an electric charge. Ernest Rutherford showed that the mass of an atom is almost entirely concentrated in the central nucleus, which carries a positive electric charge and is surrounded at relatively large distances by electrons that carry a negative charge, as a result of which the atom as a whole is electrically neutral.
Bohr suggested that electrons can only be in certain discrete orbits corresponding to different energy levels, and that the "jump" of an electron from one orbit to another, with a lower energy, is accompanied by the emission of a photon, the energy of which is equal to the energy difference between the two orbits. The frequency, according to Planck's theory, is proportional to the energy of the photon. Thus, the Bohr model of the atom established a connection between the various spectral lines characteristic of a substance emitting radiation and the atomic structure. Despite initial success, Bohr's model of the atom soon required modifications to eliminate discrepancies between theory and experiment. In addition, quantum theory at that stage did not yet provide a systematic procedure for solving many quantum problems.
A new essential feature of quantum theory emerged in 1924, when de Broglie put forward a radical hypothesis about the wave nature of matter: if electromagnetic waves, such as light, sometimes behave like particles (as Einstein showed), then particles, such as an electron, under certain circumstances, can behave like waves. In de Broglie's formulation, the frequency corresponding to a particle is related to its energy, as in the case of a photon (particle of light), but de Broglie's mathematical expression was an equivalent relationship between the wavelength, the particle's mass, and its velocity (momentum). The existence of electronic waves was experimentally proven in 1927 by Clinton J. Davisson and Lester G. Germer in the United States and J. P. Thomson in England. In turn, this discovery led to the creation in 1933 by Ernest Ruska of the electron microscope.
Impressed by Einstein's comments on de Broglie's ideas, Schrödinger attempted to apply the wave description of electrons to the construction of a consistent quantum theory, unrelated to Bohr's inadequate model of the atom. In a sense, he intended to bring quantum theory closer to classical physics, which has accumulated many examples of the mathematical description of waves. The first attempt, made by Schrödinger in 1925, ended in failure. The velocities of electrons in the theory were close to the speed of light, which required the inclusion of Einstein's special theory of relativity in it and taking into account the significant increase in the electron mass predicted by it at very high velocities.
One of the reasons for Schrödinger's failure was that he did not take into account the presence of a specific property of the electron, now known as spin (the rotation of an electron around its own axis, like a top), which at that time was little known. The next attempt was made by Schrödinger in 1926. This time, the electron velocities were chosen by him to be so small that the need to involve the theory of relativity disappeared by itself. The second attempt was crowned with the derivation of the Schrödinger wave equation, which gives a mathematical description of matter in terms of the wave function. Schrödinger called his theory wave mechanics. The solutions to the wave equation were in agreement with experimental observations and had a profound effect on the subsequent development of quantum theory.
Shortly before that, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Pascual Jordan published another version of quantum theory, called matrix mechanics, which described quantum phenomena using tables of observable quantities. These tables are mathematical sets ordered in a certain way, called matrices, on which, according to known rules, various mathematical operations can be performed. Matrix mechanics also made it possible to achieve agreement with observed experimental data, but unlike wave mechanics, it did not contain any specific references to spatial coordinates or time. Heisenberg especially insisted on abandoning any simple visual representations or models in favor of only those properties that could be determined from experiment.
Schrödinger showed that wave mechanics and matrix mechanics are mathematically equivalent. Now collectively known as quantum mechanics, these two theories provided the long-awaited common basis for describing quantum phenomena. Many physicists preferred wave mechanics because its mathematical apparatus was more familiar to them, and its concepts seemed more "physical"; operations on matrices are more cumbersome.
Shortly after Heisenberg and Schrodinger developed quantum mechanics, P. A. M. Dirac proposed a more general theory that combined elements of Einstein's special theory of relativity with the wave equation. Dirac's equation is applicable to particles moving at arbitrary speeds. The spin and magnetic properties of the electron followed from Dirac's theory without any additional assumptions. In addition, Dirac's theory predicted the existence of antiparticles, such as the positron and antiproton, twins of particles with opposite electric charges.
In 1933, Schrödinger and Dirac were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory." In the same year, Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932. At the presentation ceremony, Hans Pleyel, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, paid tribute to Schrödinger for "creating a new system of mechanics that is valid for motion within atoms and molecules." According to Pleyel, wave mechanics provides not only "a solution to a number of problems in atomic physics, but also a simple and convenient method for studying the properties of atoms and molecules and has become a powerful stimulus for the development of physics."
The physical meaning of the Schrödinger wave equation is not immediately obvious. First of all, the wave function takes on complex values containing the square root of –1. Schrödinger originally described the wave function as the undulating propagation of the negative electric charge of an electron. To avoid complex solutions, he introduced the square of a function (a function multiplied by itself). Born later identified the square of the absolute value of the wave function at a given point as a quantity proportional to the probability of finding a particle at a given point by experimental observation. Schrödinger did not like Born's interpretation, as it excluded certain statements about the particle's position and velocity.
Along with Einstein and de Broglie, Schrödinger was among the opponents of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (so named in recognition of the merits of Niels Bohr, who did a lot for the development of quantum mechanics; Bohr lived and worked in Copenhagen), because he was repelled by its lack of determinism. The Copenhagen interpretation is based on the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, according to which the position and velocity of a particle cannot be known exactly at the same time. The more precisely the position of the particle is measured, the more uncertain the velocity, and vice versa. Subatomic events can only be predicted as probabilities of various outcomes of experimental measurements. Schrödinger rejected the Copenhagen view of the wave and corpuscular models as "additional", coexisting with the picture of reality and continued to search for a description of the behavior of matter in terms of waves alone. However, he failed on this path, and the Copenhagen interpretation became dominant.
In 1927, Schrödinger, at the invitation of Planck, became his successor at the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin. He left the chair in 1933, after the Nazis came to power, in protest against the persecution of dissidents and, in particular, against the attack on the street on one of his assistants, a Jew by nationality. From Germany, Schrödinger went as a visiting professor to Oxford, where soon after his arrival the news came that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize.
In 1936, despite misgivings about his future, Schrödinger accepted the offer and became a professor at the University of Graz in Austria, but in 1938, after the annexation of Austria by Germany, he was forced to leave this post, fleeing to Italy. Accepting the invitation, he then moved to Ireland, where he became professor of theoretical physics at the Dublin Institute for Basic Research and remained in this position for seventeen years, doing research in wave mechanics, statistics, statistical thermodynamics, field theory, and especially general relativity. After the war, the Austrian government tried to persuade Schrödinger to return to Austria, but he refused while the country was occupied by Soviet troops. In 1956 he accepted the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Vienna. This was the last post he held in his life.
In 1920, Schrödinger married Annemarie Bertel; The couple had no children. All his life he was a lover of nature and an avid hiker. Among his colleagues, Schrödinger was known as a closed, eccentric person who had few like-minded people. Dirac describes Schrödinger's arrival at the prestigious Solvay Congress in Brussels as follows: “All his belongings fit in a backpack. He looked like a tramp, and it took a long time to convince the receptionist before he gave Schrödinger a hotel room.
Schrödinger was deeply interested not only in the scientific but also in the philosophical aspects of physics, and wrote several philosophical studies in Dublin. Reflecting on the problems of applying physics to biology, he put forward the idea of a molecular approach to the study of genes, setting it out in the book “What is life? The Physical Aspects of the Living Cell", which influenced several biologists, including Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Schrödinger also published a volume of poetry. He retired in 1958 at the age of seventy-one and died three years later in Vienna.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Schrödinger was awarded many awards and honors, including the Matteucci Gold Medal of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Medal of the German Physical Society, and was awarded the Order of Merit by the German government. Schrödinger was an honorary doctor of the universities of Ghent, Dublin and Edinburgh, was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the Berlin Academy of Sciences, the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Dublin Academy of Sciences and the Madrid Academy of Sciences.
Erwin Rudolf Joseph Alexander Schrödinger (Schrödinger,; German Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger; August 12, 1887 Vienna - January 4, 1961, ibid) - Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1933).
Bust of Erwin Schrödinger at the University of Vienna Since 1939 - director of the Institute for Advanced Studies(English) Institute for Advanced Studies) in Dublin; developed quantum mechanics and the wave theory of matter. Schrödinger wrote down the basic equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, known as the Schrödinger equation.
Biography
early years
Erwin Schrödinger was born in Vienna to the botanist and industrialist Rudolf Schrödinger. His mother was the daughter of a professor of chemistry at the University of Vienna Alexander Bauer Georgina Emilia Brenda, half English. Erwin learned English along with German as a child. His father was a Catholic, his mother was a Lutheran.
After graduating from the gymnasium, between 1906 and 1910, Schrödinger studied with Franz Serafin Exner and Friedrich Hasenerl. At a young age, Schrödinger read Schopenhauer, which led to his interest in color theory, philosophy, perception theory and Eastern philosophy, Vedanta.
In 1914 Schrödinger was Habilitated. From 1914 to 1918 he served as an artillery officer. In 1920 he married Annemarie Bertel and became a student of Max Wien at the University of Jena. In 1921 he became an associate professor at Stuttgart, later that year a full professor at Breslau, still later moving to Zurich.
Contribution to quantum mechanics
In 1926, Schrödinger published in the journal Annalen der Physik an article titled "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem" (Quantization as an eigenvalue problem), in which he proposed an equation now known as the Schrödinger equation. In the article, the equations were applied to consider the problem of the hydrogen atom, successfully explaining its spectrum. This article is considered one of the most prominent in physics of the 20th century - it laid the foundations of wave mechanics. Four weeks later, Schrödinger sent a second article to the journal, which dealt with the problem of a harmonic oscillator, a rigid rotator, and diatomic molecules, and also proposed a new "development" of the Schrödinger equation. In a third paper, Schrödinger showed the equivalence of his approach to that of Heisenberg and considered the Stark effect. In the fourth work, Schrödinger demonstrated how, within the framework of his proposed approach, to consider scattering problems. These four works became the pinnacle of Schrödinger's work, immediately received recognition and revolutionized physics.
In 1927, Schrödinger became Max Planck's successor at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. However, after the Nazis came to power in 1933, he left Berlin and moved to Oxford, because he was disgusted with anti-Semitism. In the same year, he received the Nobel Prize along with Paul Dirac. At Oxford, Schrödinger could not stay long. In 1934 he lectured at Princeton University, where he was offered a permanent position but declined. In 1936, Schrödinger accepted an offer of a professorship at the University of Graz.
After an intense correspondence with Albert Einstein, Schrödinger proposed a quantum paradox, a thought experiment known as "Schrödinger's cats".
Later years of life
After the Anschluss in 1939, Schrödinger had problems because of his attitude towards anti-Semitism. He was forced to publicly announce that he regretted his position. He then personally apologized to Einstein. However, this did not help. He was fired from the university because of unreliability, he was forbidden to travel outside the country. However, he fled to Italy, and from there on, accepting invitations to visit Oxford and Ghent. In 1940, at the invitation of the Irish government, Schrödinger moved to Dublin to help organize the Institute for Advanced Study, in which he became director of the School of Theoretical Physics. Schrödinger worked there for 17 years, received Irish citizenship and wrote more than 50 scientific papers, mainly devoted to unified field theory.
In 1944 Schrödinger wrote a book "What is life?", In which biological problems were considered and the problem of a complex organic molecule with a genetic code was discussed. This book had a great influence on genetic biologists, in particular on the discoverers of DNA, James Watson and Francis Crick.
Schrödinger retired in 1955. In 1956 he returned to Vienna. Before his death, he refused to support the idea of wave-particle duality, promoting only the wave approach. Schrödinger died of tuberculosis, which he suffered all his life.
Personal life
Schrödinger loved women and most of his life had a wife, mistress and other connections. His wife knew about her husband's infidelity and herself had a lover - the mathematician Hermann Weyl. The unconventional attitude towards the family, apparently, was the reason that Schrödinger did not manage to stay long in Oxford and Princeton - in those days they looked askance at this. He did not calm down in Dublin either - he had connections with students, illegitimate children.
memory
Schrödinger's crater on the far side of the Moon is named after Schrödinger. In 1993, the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics was organized in Vienna. However, the memory of physics is best preserved in terms: Schrödinger's equation, Schrödinger's cat.
Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) - Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Nobel Prize in Physics (1933); Professor at the Berlin, Oxford, Gradsky and Ghent Universities. From 1939 he was director of the Institute for advanced studies founded by him in Dublin; foreign corresponding member (1928) and foreign honorary member (1934) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Developed (1926) quantum mechanics and the wave theory of matter, formulated its basic equation (Schrödinger equation), proved its identity to the matrix version of quantum mechanics. Proceedings on crystallography, mathematical physics, theory of relativity, biophysics. Nobel Prize (1933, jointly with P. A. M. Dirac).
Erwin's father, Rudolf Schrödinger, inherited a small oilcloth factory, which provided for his family financially and left him the opportunity to engage in the natural sciences: for many years he was vice-president of the Vienna Botanical and Zoological Society and made presentations there. Erwin Schrodinger later wrote that his father was his "friend, teacher and tireless companion." Erwin's mother was a sensitive, caring and cheerful woman. Erwin's cloudless childhood passed in a house where kindness, science and art reigned.
Until the age of eleven, the child was taught at home, and in 1898, having successfully passed the entrance exams, he entered the Academic Gymnasium, which he graduated in 1906. This gymnasium enjoyed a reputation as a prestigious educational institution, but mainly in the humanities. Nevertheless, after the brilliantly passed final exams (Erwin was generally invariably the first student in the class), when it came time to choose a further path, mathematics and physics were given preference without hesitation.
In the autumn of 1906, Schrödinger entered the University of Vienna, where Ludwig Boltzmann had worked until recently, before his tragic death. But this choice of Erwin did not make him a narrow specialist. The range of his interests has always remained surprisingly wide. He knew six foreign languages, knew German poets well, and wrote poetry himself.
Nevertheless, the disciplines of the physical and mathematical cycle came to the fore more and more definitely. This was largely the merit of teachers, in particular Fritz Hasenrol, about whom in 1929 in the Nobel lecture Schrödinger said: “Then (during the First World War) Gasenrol died, and my feeling tells me that if this had not happened, he would here instead of me." It was this bright person who helped the sophomore Schrödinger understand that theoretical physics is his vocation.
For his doctoral dissertation (analogous to the current thesis), Schrödinger was offered an experimental work, which was not only successfully defended, but also awarded publication in the "Reports" of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. After passing his final exams, twenty-three-year-old Erwin Schrödinger was awarded a Ph.D.
The most interesting area for Schrödinger was thermodynamics in the probabilistic interpretation developed by Boltzmann. “The range of these ideas,” E. Schrödinger said in 1929, “became for me, as it were, my first love in science, nothing else has captured me so much and, perhaps, will never capture it again.” As a doctoral dissertation, Schrödinger defends experimental work on electrical conductivity on the surface of insulators in moist air, which he carried out in Exner's laboratory.
Assistant, Associate Professor, Officer. On the southwestern front.
Shortly after graduating from the university, Schrödinger received a position as an assistant to Exner at the Second Physics Institute of the University of Vienna. Since 1914 - Schrödinger becomes Privatdozent. Since 1910, the first publications of Schrödinger appeared on dielectrics, the kinetic theory of magnetism, atmospheric electricity (Heitinger Prize), the theory of anomalous electrical dispersion, interference phenomena, the theory of the Debye effect, etc. The range of his interests was very wide: radioactivity in its connection with atmospheric electricity (during these years of work he was awarded a prize established by the Austrian Academy of Sciences), electrical engineering, acoustics and optics, especially color theory. It was then that he became interested in quantum physics for the first time.
The successful work of the young teacher was noticed, and on January 9, 1914, he was approved by the ministry with the rank of assistant professor, which gave him the right to lecture. However, the Privatdozentura was not paid, so Schrödinger's financial situation did not change, and he still lived with his parents in Vienna and "climbed into their pocket" due to the scarcity of university wages. Attempts to change this situation were interrupted: the war began, and Erwin Schrödinger was mobilized.
Under Austrian law at the time, Erwin Schrödinger, a university graduate, had to serve in the army for a year. A few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, Schrödinger is drafted into the army. Unlike F. Gazenorl, who died at the front, Schrödinger was lucky - he was sent as an artillery officer to a relatively calm section of the Southwestern Front (Trieste region). There he even manages to keep abreast of the development of physics, in particular, to get acquainted with the articles of A. Einstein on the general theory of relativity and in 1918 publish two articles on this topic.
"Academic years of wandering"
After the end of the war, in November 1918, E. Schrödinger returned to the Vienna Institute of Physics. However, post-war life in Austria was difficult, there were no prospects for improvement, and therefore, having received an invitation to work at the Jena Physics Institute with Max Wien, Schrödinger took a six-month vacation in Vienna and with his young wife (he had just married) in April 1920 settled on new place.
A galaxy of outstanding physicists was working in Germany at that time, among which, first of all, we can mention Einstein and Max Planck, and the opportunity to communicate with them was attractive. In Jena, Schrödinger worked, however, for only four months. He has already acquired a "name", and invitations to work in various scientific centers began to arrive more and more often.
At the beginning of 1921 the universities of Kiel, Breslau, Hamburg and his native Vienna promised him a professorship in theoretical physics. An invitation also came from Stuttgart, Schrödinger moved there and at the beginning of 1921 began lecturing. But the work in Stuttgart lasted only one semester, and Schrödinger moved to the University of Breslau. However, a few weeks later he received an invitation to head the chair of theoretical physics at the Polytechnic in Zurich, which until then had been held by no less than Albert Einstein and Max von Laue. This invitation lifted Schrödinger to the highest level of the academic "table of ranks". In 1921 he moved to Zurich.
Schrödinger equation
The Schrödinger equation is the basic equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics; allows you to determine the possible states of the system, as well as the change in state over time. Formulated by E. Schrödinger in 1926
Erwin Schrödinger, like Planck, Einstein and a number of other physicists of that time, gravitated towards classical concepts in physics and did not accept the Copenhagen probabilistic interpretation of wave-particle duality. In 1925-1926 Schrödinger carried out work that put him forward in the first ranks of the creators of wave mechanics.
The presence of wave properties in electrons was accepted by Schrödinger as a fundamental experimental fact. For physics, waves were far from something new. It was well known that there is much in common in the description of waves of different physical nature - mathematically they are described by similar methods (the so-called wave differential equations in partial derivatives). And here a most curious circumstance appears, which can be illustrated by the example of a sound wave in an organ pipe.
All quantities related to a sound wave - and the distribution of densities, and pressures, and temperatures, and so on in such a "standing" wave are ordinary, described by classical theory, but at the same time there are certain discrete "resonant" states: each of the pipes , depending on its length, is "tuned" to a certain frequency. This suggests that, for example, various quantum discrete states of electrons in atoms also have the same "resonant" nature. Thus, de Broglie waves become in a series of "ordinary" classical waves, and quantum discrete states - in a series of "ordinary" resonant ones. Of course, to describe electronic (and other similar) waves, it is necessary to have an equation of the same degree of generality as the equations of Isaac Newton in classical mechanics, and in 1926 Schrödinger proposed such an equation, the famous Schrödinger equation, which was the mathematical basis of the wave (according to another terminology - quantum) mechanics.
But the “classical” interpretation of the quantity that is determined by this equation - the wave function - proposed by Schrödinger, did not survive. After intense discussions with the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, which drove Schrödinger to exhaustion and despair, he had to recognize the need to abandon its classical interpretation in favor of a probabilistic one. It was a hard blow. Before leaving Copenhagen from Bohr, Schrödinger told him: "If we are going to keep these damned quantum leaps, then I have to regret that I even took up quantum theory." Schrödinger's (as well as Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Laue) negative attitude towards the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum theory did not change until the end of his days.
at the University of Berlin
After the resignation of Max Planck, the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin was unoccupied, and the question of his successor had to be decided by a specially created commission. She proposed a list of candidates, in which in second place (after Arnold Sommerfeld) was the name of Schrödinger. Sommerfeld refused to move to Berlin, and the opportunity to take a very prestigious position opened up before Schrödinger. He hesitated and, perhaps, would not have left beautiful Zurich if he had not learned that Planck "...would be glad ..." to see him as his successor.
This decided the matter, and at the end of the summer of 1927, Erwin Schrödinger moved to Berlin. Warmly received by his new colleagues, he quickly got used to the new place, and he later recalled the years of his life and productive work in Berlin as “wonderful”. The following year, after moving from Zurich, Schrödinger was unanimously (which was extremely rare!) elected a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. But the main field of activity remained the university. Although Schrödinger was a typical "loner" and did not create a school, his scientific and moral authority played an important role.
Everything collapsed in 1933, when the Nazis came to power. An exodus of the best scientists from Germany began. Even the lack of "a guarantee that a person will unconditionally accept the National Socialist regime" was enough to be persecuted. Schrödinger also decided to leave Germany. "I can't stand being pestered by politics" - these are his words. Under the pretext of a sabbatical, he left for South Tyrol, and from there, in October 1933, he and his wife moved to Oxford. Soon, Erwin Schrödinger received word that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1933.
Schrödinger worked for three years at Oxford as a Research Fellow. Yearning for his homeland, he returned to Austria; since October 1936, Schrödinger has been an ordinary professor of theoretical physics at the University of Graz. But in March 1938, after the Anschluss, the German order spread to Austria, and on March 31, Erwin Schrödinger was deleted from all university lists in Germany and Austria due to political unreliability.
Wandering again. Moving to Dublin
Through Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, Schrödinger returned to England in 1939, where he was protected from the immediate fascist threat. At this time, the head of the government of Ireland, I. de Valera, a mathematician by education, was organizing an institute in Dublin similar to Princeton, and Schrödinger became its head. Here he worked for 17 years, actively engaged not only in physics, but also in philosophy, poetry and even biology.
In 1944, his famous book "What is life from the point of view of physics?" was published, in 1949 - a collection of poems, and in 1954 - the book "Nature and the Greeks". As a physicist, Erwin Schrödinger during these years worked a lot in the field of the theory of gravity and, like Einstein, made great efforts to build a unified field theory.
After the end of the war, Schrödinger repeatedly received invitations to return to Austria and Germany. But he fell in love with Ireland, and only believing that the threat of new political upheavals had passed, he decided to return to his homeland. His return was triumphant. Schrödinger worked at the University of Vienna for two years and another "honor year". The last years of his life were spent in the picturesque Tyrolean village of Alpbach.
