Bourn (Born), Max

December 11, 1882, Mr.. - January 5, 1970
. The German physicist Max Born was born in Breslau (now Wroclaw, . Poland) and was the eldest of two children of Gustav Born, . professor of anatomy University of Breslau, . and Margaret (nee Kaufman) Born, . talented pianist, . withdrawn from the well-known Silesian family of industrialists,
. Max was four years old when his mother died, and four years later his father married Bertha Lipshteyn, who bore him a son. Because his family was connected with the leading intellectual and artistic circles in Breslau, B. grew up in an atmosphere conducive to its development. Primary education he received in the Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Breslau.
Although B. going to become an engineer, his father advised him to listen to a variety of courses at the University of Breslau, where he enrolled in 1901, shortly after the death of his father. At university B. studied many subjects, but soon got carried away in mathematics and physics. Two summer semesters he spent at the universities of Heidelberg and Zurich. In 1904. he entered the University of Gottingen, where he studied under the guidance of famous mathematicians - David Hilbert and Felix Klein, and Hermann Minkowski. Gilbert, assessing the intellectual abilities B., made him his assistant in 1905. B. In addition, he studied astronomy in GцІttingen. At the time of receipt of the degree of Doctor in 1907. for a thesis on the theory of stability of elastic bodies of his interests shifted to the area of electrodynamics and the theory of relativity.
After graduation, B. was called for a year for military service in a cavalry regiment in Berlin, but soon, after a few months, was discharged because of asthma. This brief experience of military service has strengthened its aversion to war and militarism, which has been preserved in his life.
The next six months B. studied at Cambridge University, where he attended lectures J. J. Thomson. Back in Breslau, he began to conduct experimental research, and then proceeded to the theoretical work on the theory of relativity developed by Albert Einstein in 1905. By combining the ideas of Einstein with the mathematical approach Minkowski, B. opened a new simplified method of calculating the mass of the electron. Assessing the work, Minkowski invited B. return to GцІttingen as his assistant. However, Bourne worked with him only a few weeks due to the sudden death of Minkowski, followed in early 1909
Finished in the same year, the theoretical study of the theory of relativity, B. a lecturer at GцІttingen. Here, he investigated the properties of crystals, depending on the arrangement of atoms. Together with Theodore von Karman B. developed a precise theory of the specific heat on temperature - a theory which still underpins the study of crystals. The crystal structure has remained the main area of research Used. until the mid 20's.
In 1915, Mr.. B. became an assistant professor of theoretical physics at the Max Planck at Berlin University. During the First World War, despite his aversion to war, B. conducted military research on sound ranging and assessed the new inventions in the field artillery. It was during the war he began his friendship with Einstein. In physics, these two men united by love of music, and they gladly sang along Sonata - Einstein on the violin, and B. piano.
After the war, B. continued research on the theory of crystals, working together with Fritz Haber of communication between the physical properties of crystals and the chemical energy of their constituent components. As a result of the efforts of two scientists was established analytical technique, known as the cycle Born - Haber.
When Max von Laue expressed a desire to work with Planck, B. agreed to change places with him temporary posts and went in 1919. University of Frankfurt, to take the place of professor of physics and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Returning after two years at Gottingen, he became director of University Physics Institute, putting the condition that his old friend and colleague James Franck was appointed in the same institute direct experimental work. Under the direction of B. Physics Institute, has become a leading center of theoretical physics and mathematics.
First B. continued his research on the theory of crystals in GцІttingen, but soon he began to develop the mathematical foundations of quantum theory. Although his work with the crystals was extremely important and helped to lay the foundations of modern solid state physics, namely the contribution of B. in the quantum theory brought him the Nobel Prize.
. Quantum theory, dealing with the behavior of atomic and subatomic systems, dates back to the hypothesis put forward by Max Planck in 1900, that the energy of oscillating systems interacting with radiation, can take only discrete values
. Einstein, generalizing this idea, described the light as a stream of particles, which he called quanta. Later, Niels Bohr used quantum theory to shed light on the structure of the atom and explain the spectra of some elements. By the 20 th years. Most physicists were convinced that all energy is quantized, but the original quantum theory leaves unresolved many problems. B. wanted to create a general theory that would encompass all the quantum effects.
In 1925, Mr.. Assistant B. Werner Heisenberg made a major step in solving this problem by assuming that the basis of all atomic phenomena are certain mathematical principles. Although the Heisenberg failed to understand the mathematical principles found their relations, B. realized that Heisenberg used the matrix operations (mathematical manipulations perpetrated by certain rules on tables of numbers or variables). With one of the students, Pascual Jordan, B. formalized approach of Heisenberg and published the results in the same year in an article entitled 'Quantum Mechanics' ( "Zur Quantenmechanik"). The term quantum mechanics, introduced by BA, was supposed to signify a new vysokomatematizirovannuyu quantum theory, developed in the late 20-ies. Winter 1925/26 r. B. was a visiting lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1926, Mr.. Erwin Schrodinger developed the wave mechanics, containing the wording alternative quantum mechanics, which, in turn, as he showed was equivalent formulation of matrix mechanics. Turning to some of the methods of classical physics, wave mechanics deals with subatomic particles as waves, described by the wave function. Applying the principles of wave mechanics and matrix mechanics in the theory of atomic scattering (deflection of a single particle under the influence of another collision or passing it at close range), B. concluded that the square of the wave function, evaluated at some point in space, is the likelihood that the corresponding particle is precisely in this place. For this reason, he argued, quantum mechanics gives only a probabilistic description of the particle. Born description of the scattering particles, which became known as the Born approximation, it was extremely important for calculations in high energy physics. Shortly after the publication of the Born approximation, Heisenberg published his famous uncertainty principle, which asserts that it is impossible simultaneously to determine the exact position and momentum of the particle. Again, this can only statistical prediction.
. The statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics developed on BA, Heisenberg and Bohr, since Bohr, who lived in Copenhagen, did a great job on this interpretation, it became known as the Copenhagen interpretation
. Although a number of the founders of quantum theory, including Planck, Einstein and Schrodinger, disagreed with this approach, since it rejects the causality, the majority of physicists accepted the Copenhagen interpretation as the most fruitful. B. and Einstein carried out a prolonged controversy in the letters on the subject, although the fundamental scientific difference never spoil their friendship. Fame B. as a reformer of quantum mechanics, which formed the basis for a new picture of atomic structure and the subsequent development of physics and chemistry, has attracted many talented young physicists to him in Goettingen.
. After visiting the physical conference in Leningrad in 1928
. y B. deteriorated health status, affected the physical load, and he was forced to spend a year in the sanatorium. Here he is not wasting time, writing a textbook on optics, later banned by the Nazis, but is widely used in English-speaking countries. It was one of several textbooks and popular works written by B. various common physical issues, he published a large number, and special operations.
B. became dean of the Faculty of Science at Gottingen in 1932, but after coming to power of Hitler and anti-Semitic publications civil laws he was ousted from his post. Having left Germany and moved to Britain, he spent the next three years was a lecturer at Cambridge. After spending six months in the Indian Physics Institute in Bangalore, where he worked with the Indian physicist Venkata Roman, B. was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1936. Here he taught and conducted research until his resignation in 1953, when he became an honorary professor emeritus at Edinburgh.
While some students and colleagues B. already managed to win the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum theory, . contribution of the Bourne was not so highly valued until 1954, . when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for fundamental research in quantum mechanics, . especially for his statistical interpretation of the wave function ',
. He shared the award with Walter Bothe, who was awarded for experimental work on elementary particles. In his Nobel lecture B. described the origins of quantum mechanics and its statistical interpretation, . asked the question: 'Can we have something, . with which one can associate the usual way the concept of 'situation' and 'movement', . call object or chastitseyN 'And concluded as follows:' The answer to this question no longer belongs to physics, . and philosophy '.,
. B
. Erenberg married Hedwig, daughter of Gottingen professor of law, in 1913, Mr.. They had a son, who became head of the pharmacological department at Cambridge, and two daughters.
Shortly after his resignation B. his wife settled in Bad Pyrmont, a small town near GцІttingen, their pension rights and confiscated property was restored post-war government. Here B. continued his scientific work, preparing new editions of its publications, wrote and lectured extensively on the social responsibility of scientists, especially in connection with the use of nuclear weapons. In 1955, Mr.. He was one of the sixteen Nobel laureates, who gathered on the island of Mainau, located on Lake Constance in Switzerland, to work out a statement condemning the further development and use of nuclear weapons. In the end, this declaration signed by fifty-one Nobel Prize winner. Two years later, B. was one of eighteen gettingentsev, all of a group of leading West physicists, who have vowed not to participate in the design and manufacture of such weapons and who participated in the campaign against nuclear armament of West Germany.
. B
. died in hospital of GцІttingen January 5, 1970
Although B. best remembered for his work in the field of quantum mechanics, his research and writings have played an important role in all those areas where they were. 'I never liked to be a narrow specialist, - he wrote in his autobiography. - I too would have walked up to the modern way to conduct scientific research in large groups of specialists. The philosophical foundation of science - that's what always interested me more than the concrete results'.
. Numerous awards BA, except for the Nobel Prize include Stouksskuyu medal at Cambridge University (1936), the Max Planck Medal Germanskogo Physical Society (1948) and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of London (1950)
. He received nine honorary doctorates and was a member of many scientific societies and academies, including the Royal Society and the American National Academy of Sciences.