HEISENBERG, Werner (1901-1976)

Продан
£ 32 760
Дата аукционаClassic
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Место проведения
Великобритания, London
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Аукцион завершен. Ставки на лот больше не принимаются.
Archive
ID 870800
Лот 60 | HEISENBERG, Werner (1901-1976)
HEISENBERG, Werner (1901-1976)

Typed letter signed (‘Werner Heisenberg’) to H.A. Kramers, Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut für Physik, Berlin, 10 January 1944; [enclosing:] Typed manuscript draft for ‘Die beobachtbaren Grössen in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen III‘, [1943-44], with autograph emendations and annotations.

In German. Letter: one page, 295 x 210mm (edges tattered and split, not affecting legibility, one tear disrupting the printed header). Manuscript: 22 pages, 283 x 201mm, paginated 1-23, annotations in pen and pencil (missing 16 in the pagination but the text continuous, final leaf loose and with losses at central horizontal fold, some of the edges a little frayed).



Replacing quantum electrodynamics with the 'S-matrix': Werner Heisenberg, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for ‘the creation of quantum mechanics’, writes to the Dutch physicist Hans Kramers suggesting they collaborate, enclosing a typescript draft of his revolutionary paper with autograph annotations. Since receiving Kramers’ letter, Heisenberg has worked further on the problem of the η-matrix and written the ‘little work’ enclosed here, which he describes as incomplete. Being unsure whether difficulties at the Leipzig printing press will stymie its publication, Heisenberg would much prefer it if he and Kramers could tackle the problems arising in the paper together and perhaps collaborate jointly on another. ‘The difficulties I mean are indicated on page 3 of the paper. The requirement that S should be an analytic function is in no way fulfilled by itself if one writes an analytic function for the η-matrix, as I did in Part II. For example, the prescription for η given in Part II, Eq. (36) leads to discontinuities in the scattering coefficients, which does not seem to be consistent with the analytical character of S. So one would have to answer the general question: What should a valid η-matrix look like? Probably not much else can be done than to work out such η-matrices for non-relativistic wave equations and then to study their properties. Perhaps you already have some kind of calculations from which you can learn about this problem’. Heisenberg reiterates his desire that the two should work together on this problem, adding that [the Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut] is still functioning despite air raids, that he and his family spent Christmas in Bavaria, and sending his best wishes to Kramers and his family for the new year. He encloses the present 22-page typescript draft with autograph emendations and annotations for his paper ‘Die beobachtbaren Grössen in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen III‘ [later published in the Zeitschrift für Physik, vol. 123, 1944, pp.93-112], containing further study of the analytic properties of the S-matrix.



In the early 1940s, dissatisfied with the limitations of quantum electrodynamics, Heisenberg began working on his theory of a unitary ‘characteristic’ ‘S-matrix’, a shift in the fundamental theory of elementary particles. A two-part paper, ‘Die beobachtbaren Grössen in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen’, was published in 1943; at a colloquium at Leiden in October 1943, Hans Kramers remarked to Heisenberg that ‘if the actual elements of the S-matrix could ever be determined without a complete theory, they would yield a so-called analytic function […] Back in Berlin, Heisenberg wrote immediately that he had grown ‘more and more enthusiastic’ about Kramers’s remark ‘because I believe that with it one can really arrive at a complete model of a theory of elementary particles’’ (Cassidy, Uncertainty, 1992, pp. 478-9). The present letter and draft are the result of that meeting: Kramers, writing from the German-occupied Netherlands, ultimately replied to Heisenberg in April 1944, asking that his contribution be acknowledged in the published paper but declining the request from his colleague in Berlin that the two collaborate.





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