Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (German pronunciation: /ˈɛʁviːn ˈʃʁøːdɪŋɐ/; Vienna, August 12, 1887-ibid., January 4, 1961) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, nationalized Irish, who carried out important contributions in the fields of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for developing Schrödinger's equation, shared with Paul Dirac. After a long correspondence with Albert Einstein he proposed the cat thought experiment Schrödinger that showed the paradoxes and questions that quantum physics led to.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Schrödinger was born in Erdberg, a town near Vienna, in 1887. He was the son of Rudolf Schrödinger and Georgine Emilia Brenda. In 1898 he entered the Akademisches Gymnasium, one of the most prestigious institutions of secondary education in the general German field. Between the years 1906 and 1910, Schrödinger studied in Vienna receiving classes from Franz Serafin Exner and Friedrich Hasenöhrl. He also carried out experimental work in collaboration with Friedrich Kohlrausch. In 1911, Schrödinger became Exner's assistant.
Beginnings of scientific career (1911-1921)
In October 1911, after spending a year of military service in the Austrian army, Schrödinger returned to his old physics institute as Exner's assistant. He taught physics classes and participated in experiments carried out at Exner's laboratory. In 1913, Schrödinger applied for the position of Privatdozent and, after fulfilling the relevant requirements (publishing a scientific article, giving test master classes...), at the beginning of 1914 the Ministry approved his request. and granted him the permit. World War I postponed the start of Schrödinger's teaching career. The young physicist served as an artillery officer to the relatively peaceful parts of the Austrian South-East Front, at Raibl, Komárom and Prosecco in the Trieste region. In 1917 he became professor of meteorology at the officers' academy in Wiener Neustadt. His schedule left him plenty of time to read the professional literature and work on scientific problems.
In November 1918, Schrödinger returned to Vienna. Shortly thereafter he received an offer to hold the chair of theoretical physics at Chernivtsi University. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the city was located in another country, so he turned down the offer. The difficult economic situation, his meager salary and the bankruptcy of the family business forced him to look for a new job, even abroad. An opportunity arose for him in 1919, when Max Wien, head of the Physics Institute at the University of Jena, invited him to become an assistant professor of theoretical physics. The Austrian accepted the offer wholeheartedly and in April 1920 he moved to Jena, just after marrying Annemarie Bertel on the 6th of that month. Even so, he only stayed four months, since in September he left for Stuttgart to be an extraordinary professor of physics at the city's Higher Technical School (now the University of Stuttgart). Despite the high inflation of the time, he was offered a large salary increase. Even so, soon other institutions began to offer him even better conditions and the position of professor of theoretical physics, including the universities of Wrocław, Kiel, Hamburg and Vienna. Schrödinger opted for the former and left Stuttgart after half a year. In Wrocław he worked during the summer season, but in the end he changed occupations again, this time to be head of the prestigious Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Zurich.
Zurich - Berlin (1921-1933)
Schrödinger moved to Zurich in the summer of 1921. Life in Switzerland became more stable for him. The scientist practiced skiing and mountaineering in the mountains, which offered many recreational opportunities. His relationships with Peter Debye, Paul Scherrer, and Hermann Weyl, who worked at the Zurich Polytechnic not far away, fostered Schrödinger's scientific creativity. His time in Zürich was darkened by serious illness in 1921 and 1922. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis. and had to spend nine months recuperating in Arosa in the Swiss Alps. In terms of creativity, the years in Zürich were the most fruitful, and Schrödinger wrote his classic work on wave mechanics. Weyl is known to have been of great help to him in solving mathematical difficulties.
In 1926 he published an article entitled Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem in the prestigious journal Annalen der Physik about the quantization of the eigenvector problem of wave mechanics that was would become the Schrödinger equation. The notoriety generated by his groundbreaking work made Schrödinger one of the leading candidates for the prestigious post of Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin, which had become vacant after the resignation of Max Planck. After Arnold Sommerfeld's refusal and doubts about whether it was worth leaving Zürich, Schrödinger accepted the offer and began working in his new position in October 1927.
In Berlin, the Austrian physicist found friends and allies who shared his conservative view of quantum mechanics and did not recognize the Copenhagen interpretation, including Max Planck himself, Albert Einstein, and Max von Laue. At the University, Schrödinger taught various disciplines of physics, ran seminars, and moderated physics colloquia, but generally did not attract much attention, as was evident from the few students he had. In the words of Victor Weisskopf, who worked for a time as Schrödinger's assistant, Erwin "played the outsider at the university".
In the same year, 1927, he attended the V Solvay Congress, dedicated to the structure and properties of the atomic nucleus, which was held at the Free University of Brussels.
Oxford - Graz - Ghent (1933-1939)
Schrödinger described his time in Berlin as "the wonderful years during which I taught and learned." This period ended in 1933, with Hitler's rise to power. Schrödinger did not like Nazism at all, but he never expressed it in public, so as not to get involved in politics. Even so, at that time it was almost impossible to remain apolitical in Germany.
In order not to remain under the authority of an anti-Semitic regime, he decided to leave Germany. Schrödinger himself explained his departure from the country by saying that "I cannot suffer that politicians harass me". British physicist Frederick Lindemann (later to become Lord Cherwell), who was visiting Germany, invited him to accompany him to Magdalen College, Oxford University. Erwin and his wife vacationed in South Tyrol, from where they He went straight to Oxford. Shortly after arriving, he discovered that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Paul Dirac, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory".
In his autobiography, written for this occasion, Schrödinger summarized his way of thinking:
In my research work, as well as in life in general, I have never committed to thinking prevalent and have not followed the views established for some time. I find it hard to work as a team, even unfortunately, with the students, even though my work has never been completely independent, since my interest in one matter depends on the interest shown by someone else. I do not usually say the first word, but the last one, since my motivation is usually a desire to protest or fix problems...Erwin Schrödinger
His position at Magdalen College, Oxford did not involve teaching work. Like other foreigners, he received money from Imperial Chemical Industries. Even so, he never got used to the specific character of what was one of the oldest universities in England. One of the reasons was that Oxford focuses mainly on letters and theology, with little interest in theoretical physics, which made the scientist uncomfortable with his high position and large salary, which at times seemed like a handout. Another aspect that he did not like was public life, full of conventions and formalities that, according to him, restricted his freedom. The situation was further complicated by his unconventional personal and family life (he lived with two women), which caused a scandal in religious circles at Oxford. In particular, Schrödinger had a bitter conflict with the professor of English and literature Clive Staples Lewis. All these problems, together with the end of grants for immigrant scientists in early 1936, forced Schrödinger to look at different options to continue his career elsewhere than at Oxford.
In 1934 he did an lecturership at Princeton University where he was offered a permanent position that he did not accept. He was about to go to the University of Edinburgh, but his visa expired and in 1936 he accepted the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Graz, in Austria.
Schrödinger's stay in his native country did not last long. In March 1938, the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, took place. Schrödinger began to have problems due to his flight from Berlin in 1933 and his political positions against Nazism. For this reason, following the advice of the rector of the university, at first he published a letter in the Tagespost retracting his opposition to Nazism (later he would regret having done so, as he admitted to Einstein), which earned him fierce criticism from his expatriate colleagues. This fact, even so, was not enough for the Nazis to forget the offense and he was dismissed by the university for lack of political reliability . He suffered harassment and was instructed not to leave Austria. Schrödinger, fearing that he would be forced to stay by now, quickly left Austria for Rome (at that time, Fascist Italy was the only country in which citizens of the Third Reich could travel without the need for a visa). By then, he had already cultivated a relationship with Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera, a mathematician by training, and thought of establishing an analogue of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in Dublin.
From Rome he went to the University of Oxford and Ghent.
Dublin - Vienna (1939-1961)
In 1940 he received an invitation to help create what would become the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (the 'Irish Institute for Advanced Studies'), promoted by the taoiseach (Prime Minister) Éamon de Valera. He moved to Ireland, settled in Dublin, in the suburb of Clontarf, and became director of the School for Theoretical Physics ( School for Theoretical Physics ). He stayed in Ireland for 17 years and acquired Irish nationality. During his stay in Dublin he wrote more than 50 publications on various subjects, from biology (What is life, 1944), to the history of science (Nature and the Greeks, 1954) through his approximations to a unified theory of all fundamental forces (sometimes known as the theory of everything) (Space-Time Structure, 1950).
Schrödinger lived in Dublin until his retirement in 1955. During his stay he continued to have relationships with different women, including some students, relationships considered scandalous, from whom he had two daughters. In 1956 he returned to Vienna. The last years of his life were dedicated to mathematical physics, general relativity and the theory of everything; but his last book Meine Weltansicht (& # 39; My vision of the world & # 39;) from 1961 was dedicated to his vision of metaphysics.
Schrödinger died on January 4, 1961 in the city of Vienna, as a result of tuberculosis at the age of 73, and was buried in the town of Alpbach in Tyrol.
- Chronology
- 1934 associate at Princeton University.
- 1936 University of Graz, Austria.
- 1938 after the occupation of Austria by Hitler, he had trouble for leaving Germany in 1933 and for his political preferences; he sought scholarships and research through Italy and Switzerland to Oxford - University of Ghent. At the Institute of Advanced Studies in Dublin, he is Director of the Theoretical Physics School. More than 50 publications in several areas. Intents towards a unified field theory.
- 1944 What is life?
- In Dublin until his retirement.
- 1955 returns to Vienna (square ad personam). At an important conference during the World Energy Conference, he refuses to talk about atomic energy due to his skepticism. Instead he gave a lecture on philosophy.
Died in Vienna in 1961, aged 73, of tuberculosis. He was survived by his widow Anny. He was buried in Alpbach (Austria).
What is life?
In 1944 he published in English a small volume entitled What is life? (What is life?), the result of some informative conferences. This minor work has had a great influence on the later development of biology. He contributed two fundamental ideas:
- First, that life is neither alien nor opposed to the laws of thermodynamics, but biological systems retain or expand their complexity by exporting the entropy that produces their processes (see neguentropy).
- Secondly, that the chemistry of the biological heritage, at a time when its dependence on nucleic acids or proteins was not clear, should be based on an "aperiodic crisis", contrasting the periodicity required to a crystal with the need for a sequence capable of coding necessarily irregular information. According to James Watson's memories, DNA, The Secret of Life, Schrödinger's book of 1944 What is Life? inspired him to investigate genes, which led him to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.
Scientific research
In 1926 he formulated his famous Schrödinger equation, which, despite coming a little later than Werner Heisenberg's Matrizenmechanik (matrix mechanics), is one of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger used differential equations to describe how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time. This contribution brought him world fame and earned him the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics (jointly with the British physicist Paul Dirac). In a famous series of articles published in the scientific journal Annalen der Physik Schrödinger demonstrated the equivalence of his formulation with the matrix mechanics of Heisenberg, Born and Pascual Jordan.
In 1935, after extensive correspondence with his friend Albert Einstein, he proposed to publish the thought experiment known as Schrödinger's cat, with the intention of illustrating the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics when trying to apply it to the description of phenomena on a macroscopic scale.
Schrödinger made important contributions in the field of color. Ernst Mach's work brought him to the theory of vision or color perception, a field in which he became a recognized expert. He also studied colorimetry, he studied different color spaces of the CIE 1931 (CIE XYZ) model of the International Commission on Illumination Since the additive mixing of colors follows the rules of vectorial addition, he represented colors as vectors.
Acknowledgments
- In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics
- In 1937 he received the Max Planck Medal
- In 1949 it was incorporated (as a member) to the Royal Society of London
- In 1983 the Bank of Austria issued a 1 000 shilling ticket dedicated to Schrödinger.
- In his honor the asteroid was baptized with his last name (13092) Schrödinger discovered on 24 September 1992 by Freimut Börngen and Lutz D. Schmadel.
- The lunar crater Schrödinger bears this name in his memory.
- In 1999 the Austrian Academy of Sciences created the Erwin Schrödinger Award (Erwin-Schrödinger-Preis).
Legacy
The philosophical questions raised by Schrödinger's cat are still debated today. This thought experiment has become his most enduring contribution to popular science, while Schrödinger's equation is his most enduring contribution in a more technical realm. In 1993, the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics was founded in Vienna.[citation needed]
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