Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and The Bomb by David C. Cassidy (PDF)

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“Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb is an excellent work of scholarship and makes Heisenberg’s work and life accessible to the general reader, while remaining important and interesting for the historian and scientist. Along with Wernher von Braun, Heisenberg’s career under Hitler represents perhaps the best twentieth-century example of a faustian bargain with evil for the advancement of knowledge and science. Cassidy tells this story with nuance and passion.”—Mark Walker, author of Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic BombIn 1992, David C. Cassidy’s groundbreaking biography of Werner Heisenberg, Uncertainty, was published to resounding acclaim from scholars and critics. Michael Frayn, in the Playbill of the Broadway production of Copenhagen, referred to it as one of his main sources and “the standard work in English.” Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atom Bomb) called it “the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist,” and the Los Angeles Times praised it as “an important book. Cassidy has sifted the record and brilliantly detailed Heisenberg’s actions.” No book that has appeared since has rivaled Uncertainty, now out of print, for its depth and rich detail of the life, times, and science of this brilliant and controversial figure of twentieth-century physics.Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist’s personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime.David C. Cassidy is the author of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Einstein and Our World, and Uncertainty. Professor of natural sciences at Hofstra University, he has served as associate editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. He is the only author to have received both the Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics and the Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society for the same book (Uncertainty).

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Editorial Reviews: From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Drawing on captured Nazi documents found in Soviet archives and other recently released materials, Cassidy (J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century) offers a new view of the German wunderkind Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976), who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in physics for revolutionizing the nascent field of quantum physics, first with his matrix interpretation of quantum mechanics, then with his famous uncertainty principle. What Cassidy seeks to understand is why Heisenberg chose—indeed fought—to remain in Germany under the Nazi regime and then took a leadership role in its efforts to split the atom. Heisenberg later rationalized these activities, but Cassidy shows that the account in the scientist’s memoirs doesn’t always agree with evidence in the recovered documents. Heisenberg’s famous wartime meeting with his one-time mentor Niels Bohr in Copenhagen is parsed in detail as Cassidy considers their conflicting accounts. Exhaustively detailed yet eminently readable, this is an important book, though it moves too quickly through Heisenberg’s 30 postwar years. Photos. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author David C. Cassidy is the author of “J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century,” “Einstein and Our World,” and “Uncertainty.” Professor of Natural Sciences at Hofstra University, he has served as Associate Editor of “The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein.”

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⭐Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the BombDavid C. CassidyBellevue Literary Press, NY, 2009David Cassidy has written what surely must be the definitive work on Werner Heisenberg. He clearly likes the subject, as this is his second book on the same person! The previous one: “Uncertainty: The life and science of Werner Heisenberg” appeared in 1991. The present book draws on more material, has a wider scope, and at least on the subject of the German nuclear-weapon program draws conclusions that would appear to this reviewer as beyond contention.After a brilliant career, the Nobel Prize in physics at the age of 31 (in 1932), Heisenberg was faced with the onset of the Nazi regime. His love of his country and culture meant that he refused to leave Germany. He never joined the Nazi party, but was faced with living, and working, with the regime. Cassidy finds this the most fascinating aspect of Heisenberg, and it is difficult to disagree.Many of Heisenberg’s actions appear difficult to comprehend with the advantage of hindsight; for example, the famous visit to Niels Bohr in 1941 (the subject of Michael Frayn’s wonderful play) is covered in length. We also (since 2002) have the advantage of the Bohr archives to set the record straight on this visit. Cassidy puts them in perspective with what Heisenberg had to suffer at the hands of not only the regime, but also the German clique (led by Nobel Laureates Stark & Lenard) who promoted “Aryan Physics”. Specifically, they tried to eliminate all references to Einstein and relativity, and, just for good measure, quantum mechanics as well. Heisenberg’s work was inextricably tied into both concepts, and he was vigorously attacked. Cleared in 1937 by the personnel intervention of Heinrich Himmler (whose mother knew Heisenberg’s), Heisenberg was greatly relieved, and came to have confidence in his judgment about the regime. He was terribly mistaken.With the discovery of fission at the end of 1938, Heisenberg, like most other physicists, became involved. He went on to head the main German effort to develop a nuclear threat. As explained by Cassidy, this was not successful due to competing efforts sponsored by different parts of the regime, as well as a lack of leadership and clear scientific, and technical, drive. Conditions in war-time Germany, especially after the start of Allied bombing, were, of course, much more difficult than in the US, but there were no great moral discussions. The notion (the infamous “lesart”) that the Germans did not develop the bomb because they did not want to is nonsense. Cassidy destroys this myth, as others have before, especially the Farm Hall tapes (edited by Bernstein and published in 1996). The German program was blighted by mistakes, both in physics and technology, and they never even got a reactor operating, which Fermi did for the Allies in Chicago in 1942.After the war Heisenberg used his considerable prestige to help rebuild both Germany and physics. In this, he deserves praise. Physics, as expected, had moved on, and he never made any lasting contribution after the war, but his legacy in physics is assured.Heisenberg was a brilliant physicist, and a man who knew right from wrong. Of all the senior German physicists who stayed in Germany during this dreadful time, only Max von Laue seems to have steered a path through the rocks – he chose not to collaborate at all with the regime. Heisenberg’s great error was to believe that he could somehow steer between the moral conflicts of the Nazi regime. He was to learn, to his cost, that if one sups with the devil, take a long spoon. Heisenberg’s was not nearly long enough. David Cassidy has captured this conflict in a brilliant book and I do not expect him to produce a third biography.

⭐I wanted to read this book for two reasons; one to try to deepen my understanding of the principle of uncertainty (how it came about, what it really means, etc.); and, two, better understand how this genius in physics managed to rationalize his position during the Hitler years. It was much to ask of the author for my first objective, and, sure enough this objective was left unfulfilled. (It does not appear that the author was much interested in the intricacies of quantum physics. However, the second objective was covered way beyond my expectations. In fact this appears to be the main objective of the writer himself, of assessing whether Heisenberg was in any way blamable for, in effect, having supported the Nazi regime, even if very passively.All in all, this is a very well researched, very intelligently crafted book which does a very good job at describing the history of that era while at the same time presenting the human dilemma of the scientists throughout the war years.

⭐The term “uncertainty” entered the realm of physics and captivated philosophers as well. “Uncertainty” is interwoven with its developer Werner Heisenberg’s life in which the term is so ironic and apropos. Other books about Heisenberg, an award winning play by Frayn etc.keep the topic intriguing. This book is an excellent biography that unfolds the myriad contradictions in Heisenberg’s behavior as a dedicated German flitting though the Nazi era and who became a focal point for “what is responsibility” and who “behaved wel” and who did not. The record on Heisenberg is not conclusive but the detail in which Cassidy presents Heisenberg’s life and works makes for captivating reading: it is thorough, fair and as clear as uncertainty allows on Heisenberg and other participants in this era. If you want a discussion of “uncertainty” in the technical sense (for it is a quantifiable thing) you will not find it here; you will get good general coverage of the physics but the book is primarily a very well researched and unbiased assessment of the life of its subject and of his behavior during his deep involvement with twentieth century physics and with his colleagues and acquaintances in Nazi Germany (and with Bohr, Goudsmith and others who were not in Germany.)

⭐Beyond Uncertainty is a book that introduces you to ALL the Brains in the “Uranium Club.” Heisenberg was just one of several great minds that Germany in the 1920’s & 30’s generated. You are lead down the path of Nazi-ism in a gentle way and you can imagine your family caught insuch a trap…actually the whole Hitler thing comes into focus, not just as American views of Germany in the 1930’s. In 1939 Heisenberg shows up at German Army HQ in his little corporal’s uniform, ready to do his part. The General in chargesays “Heisenberg, oh My… we know you are Nobel Lauriat , now go down in the basement with the other physicists and start working on the Uranium Problem….. But there is lots more. I bought the paperback at the retail price. Worth it if you are a WW II buff or a physicist bomb buff…..

⭐Werner Heisenberg was one of the half-dozen or so men (and one woman) to whom the development of quantum mechanics can be attributed. This volume treats both his life and work as a theoretical physicist and a manager and developer of science policy. His relations with the Nazi regime are well covered here, with particular emphasis on his role in the development of Nazi nuclear research.As always with a non-technical treatment, verbal descriptions of many scientific phenomena lack the precision of a mathematical approach, but still well done.

⭐A tome but quite readable. Doesn’t give much in the way of understanding of the physics as it evolved but is an excellent portrayal of the times. Gives a good feeling for Germany and most of Europe in between the wars and during WW II and is worth reading for that reason.

⭐A fantastic read. This is not for someone seeking detailed explication of Heisenberg’s physics (the author deals with that more extensively in an earlier work). Rather it is a thorough and judicious investigation of Heisenberg’s personal development, his roots in German society and culture and his consequent inability to abandon the country after the Nazis came to power. Heisenberg has often been accused of turning a blind eye, even actively colluding, with the Nazi regime. But this volume provides a necessary corrective to that superficial view. In fact he experience enormous difficulties with the Nazi bureaucracy, incessant and virulent attacks from the Nazi scientists Lenard and Starck, which at various times threatened to bring him down. It was ironically a dispute between warring factions of the Nazi bureaucracies – in which after long scrutiny he was supported by Himmler and his faction – that saved him. In circumstances where he chose to stick it out in his own country under often life-threatening pressure from a dictatorship, could he avoid or be blamed for his actions? Yes, he could have quit like Einstein (whose life admittedly was under threat), Schrodinger and others. But Cassidy shows why he did not and in not doing so that he did not choose the easy option. The later sections about Heisenberg’s involvement with the Nazi nuclear bomb research are also interesting, although it turns out the Germans were far behind the US/British project and the Nazis swallowed the “theoretically but not technically feasible” assumption. It’s clear that German scientists, including Heisenberg, were astounded by how far in advance their US/British counterparts were. The hubris of assuming German superiority in science, no doubt. The latter third or so of the book is dominated by this story, which therefore rather submerges other aspects of Heisenberg’s life. The final chapter is a very rapid conspectus of Heisenberg’s later years as a “public figure”. Admittedly the source material may have been less voluminous. Or it may just be that after the excitement of the youthful discoveries (physics and math seems generally a young man’s trade, pace Schodringer), inevitably the interest flags. To that extent the investigation of Heisenberg’s role vis a vis the Nazis and the bomb project may make his life more revealing as a proxy for the scientist-ethics-society debate than those of most of his scientific peers. Cassidy is also particularly good on the historical background, something historians of science are not always so adept at. All in all, a well-written and highly recommended study of Heisenberg, his society, his place in quantum mechanics and his times.

⭐This is a book primarily on the life and work of the famous German physicist Werner Heisenberg. I think its strength is especially in the amount of detail (accessible to anyone) given in relation to the birth of Quantum Mechanics. Heisenberg’s roots as a student in Sommerfeld school, his contacts with the major players involved in the old quantum physics and his special relationship with Niels Bohr, are all included as fundamental factors leading Heisenberg into his famous breakthrough of 1925. I think this book is a must-read for all people interested in the history of physics, and the history of Quantum Mechanics in particular.

⭐excellent. Too much written about his childhood.

⭐David C. Cassidy, emeritierter Professor für Chemie der Hofstra Universität, studierte Physik und promovierte in Wissenschaftsgeschichte über ‘Werner Heisenberg and the crisis in quantum theory 1920–1925’. Aus der Dissertation und sechs Jahren Quellenstudium, darunter auch in Archiven in Deutschland, als Stipendiat der Alexander v. Humboldt Foundation in Stuttgart und als Assistenz Professor in Regensburg, entstand seine berühmte Heisenberg Biographie ‘Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg’ (1992), für die er mit dem Science Writing Award des American Institute of Physics und dem Pfizer Preis 1993 ausgezeichnet wurde.’Beyond Uncertainty’ ist nun eine gründliche Überarbeitung der Erfolgsbiographie des Autors, bereits seinerzeit war es sein Ziel, die umfassendste Heisenberg Biographie zu schaffen, die zu dieser Zeit möglich war; doch seit der Ersterscheinung des Werks ist viel Zeit vergangen, u.a. ist der kalte Krieg nun Vergangenheit, zahlreiche Dokumente wurde seitdem de-klassifiziert, darunter die Farm- Hall Transkriptionen, Archive der ehemaligen Sowjetunion und DDR wurden geöffnet, das alles eröffnet neue Blickwinkel auf die Geschichte des Dritte Reiches, schließlich wurden 2003 auch die privaten Briefe von Heisenberg von Familienmitgliedern veröffentlicht.Werner Heisenberg gehört ohne Zweifel zu den bedeutendsten Physikern des 20. Jahrhunderts, er wurde in die Storm und Drang Zeit der Quantentheorie hineingeboren, studierte bei Arnold Sommerfeld in München, und lernte so dessen Erweiterung der Atomtheorie, die auf Bohrs Ideen, der ad hoc Quantisierung von Elektronenbahnen, beruht, aus erster Hand kennen, er erfuhr aber auch von den Schwierigkeiten und Grenzen dieser Modelle – für eine konsistente Theorie fehlte offenbar noch etwas Entscheidendes. Und es war Heisenberg, dem der erste Durchbruch zu einer neuen Quantenmechanik gelang, die wenig später in berühmten Drei- Männer- Arbeit als Matrizenmechanik ausformuliert wurde. Der akademische Erfolg lies auch nicht lange auf sich warten – 1928 wurde Heisenberg, als jüngster Ordinarius, nach Leipzig berufen, und 1933 erhielt er den Nobelpreis ,als Würdigung seiner bedeutenden Beiträge zur Quantentheorie.Cassidy zeichnet mit akribischer Genauigkeit, die Lebensumstände von Heisenberg und dessen Familie – bis zu seinen Großeltern – nach, geht dabei auf zeitgeschichtlichen und politischen Bedingungen und Hintergründe ein. In diese Schilderungen eingebettet, wird Heisenbergs akademischer Werdegang erzählt, seine Ausbildung in Schule, Gymnasium, seine Entscheidung für die Physik als Studienfach, seine ersten wissenschaftlichen Erfolge unter Anleitung von Sommerfeld, sowie seinen weiteren wissenschaftlichen Werdegang, der in engen Austausch mit Wolfgang Pauli, einem weiteren bedeutenden Sommerfeld- Schüler, Max Born seinem (Postdoc) Mentor in Göttingen, und schließlich mit Niels Bohr, den Heisenberg anlässlich der ‘Bohr- Festspiele’ in Göttingen kennenlernt.Um ein wenig von den Problem zu vermitteln, mit denen sich Heisenberg und seine Mitstreiter herumschlugen, geht der Autor auch auf den Inhalt von Heisenbergs Arbeit ein, und vermittelt dem Leser einen Eindruck, wie die Beiträge verschiedener Forscher, bei der Schöpfung der Quantenmechanik zusammen spielten, denn im Gegensatz zur Relativitätstheorie, die im wesentlichen von Einstein im Alleingang geschaffen wurde, ist die Quantenmechanik ein Gemeinschaftswerk einer Reihe genialer junger Wissenschaftler – Pauli sprach einmal ironisch von ‘Knaben- Physik’ – und ihrer Lehrer. Auf Details geht der Autor dabei allerdings nicht ein, aus dem Text von ‘Uncertainty’ wurden sogar alle Passagen, die Formeln enthielten entfernt, bzw. verbal umgearbeitet.Dabei geraten leider auch die Schilderungen des spannenden Durchbruchs zur neuen Theorie, der Heisenberg auf Helgoland gelingt, eher blass, während Heisenberg noch nach über vierzig Jahren die Ereignisse plastisch vor Augen hat, wie er in seinen autobiographischen Erzählungen “Der Teil und das Ganze“ (engl. ‘Physics and Beyond’) berichtet.Das zweite Hauptthema, dem sich Cassidy widmet, ist Heisenbergs Wirken während der Zeit des Dritten Reichs, als viele seiner Kollegen mit jüdischen Wurzeln zur Emigration gezwungen wurden, kam für Heisenberg eine Arbeit fern von Deutschland nicht in Betracht, obwohl er anlässlich seiner verschiedenen Vortragsreisen, u.a. in die USA, wiederholt Stellen- Angebote erhielt; er fühlte sich als frische gebackener Ordinarius und Nobel Laureat relativ sicher, beriet sich sogar mit Max Planck, inwiefern es Möglichkeit gäbe sich gegen die Einmischungen des Reichserziehungsministerium zu erwehren – Heisenberg wollte ggf. gemeinsam mit Leipziger Kollegen sein Amt zur Verfügung stellen, Planck konnte ihn aber überzeugen, dass das Regime bereits so aggressiv sei, dass es nur ums Überleben gehen könnte, um danach beim Wiederaufbau eines wissenschaftlichen Lebens zu helfen. Heisenberg ist auch, gemeinsam mit seinem Lehrer Sommerfeld, erklärter Gegner des Unsinns der ‘Deutschen Physik’, mit der sich u.a. J. Stark und P. Lenard bei den Naziideologen anbiedern. Andererseits ist Heisenberg, zusammen mit seinem Schüler C.F. v. Weizsäcker, aktiv am deutschen Uranprojekt beteiligt, dass die 1938 von Otto Hahn entdeckte Kernspaltung militärisch bewerten sollte.Dieses sensible Thema, behandelt der Autor mit der gleichen Akkurates und Fairness, mit der er auch Heisenbergs Werdegang erörtert, er zeiht zur Bewertung auch neues Material aus Archiven und de-klassifizierten Akten heran – er versucht aber nichts weniger, als zu untersuchen, wie es zu der totalitären Nazidiktatur gerade in dem kulturell und industriell fortschlichen Deutschland kommen konnte, und am Beispiel Heisenbergs, wie sich Nicht- Nazis der oberen akademischen Schicht, mit dem Regime arrangieren mussten und konnten.Das Buch folgt im wesentlichen der zeitlichen Reihenfolge, trotzdem sind die Kapitel eher thematisch geordnet, so dass gelegentliche Vor- oder Rückgriffe vorkommen, sowie Dopplungen von Ereignissen, die unter verschieden Blickwinkeln erörtert werden. Die Kapitelstruktur aus ‘Uncertainty’ blieb größtenteils erhalten, bis auf die Kapiteln, die auf die Zeit rund um den zweiten Weltkrieg beziehen, hier wurden aus den genannten Gründen weitergehende Umstellungen und Änderungen vorgenommen, so dass insgesamt drei Kapitel hinzu kamen.Bereits ‘Uncertainty’ wurde als iterarische Biographie angelegt, somit sind Ausführungen zu Heisenbergs wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten in den einzelnen Kapiteln gemischt mit Erörterung von historischen und politischen Ereignissen, das macht es gerade bei Heisenbergs späteren Beiträgen zur Quantenfeldtheorie, Kerntheorie und zur Theorie der Elementarteilchen nicht gerade einfach, sie im die Zusammenhang zu betrachten. Zwar Verfügt das Buch nun über einen (Sach-) Index, aber dafür fiel die übersichtliche Zeittafel aus Uncertainty’ weg. Bei all seinem Umfang eignet sich das Buch nur bedingt als Referenz. Auch ist seine Themenverteilung durchaus nicht unpolarisiert, der Autor widmet etwa die Hälfte des Buches seiner Analyse und Auseinandersetzung mit der Nazizeit, während Heisenbergs Schaffen, in den dreißig Jahren nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg, in ein Kapitel gedrängt wird, da er sich für den Wiederaufbau den der Wissenschaftslandschaft in Deutschland und Europa einsetzte, u.a. als Direktor des Max-Planck-Instituts für Physik und Befürworter der Gründung des CERN.Das Buch ist eine unerschöpfliche Quelle zu Werner Heisenbergs Leben, das den vielfältigen Fassetten dieses bedeutenden Physikers gerecht zu werden versucht, und das zu Recht bereits als Standwerk gilt; Schriftsteller Michael Frayn bezieht sich im Postscript zu seinem Stück ‘Copenhagen’ ausführlich darauf. Das Werk ist und will keine wissenschaftliche Biographie sein; eine ausgezeichnete solche Darstellung ist etwa in Rechbergs zweibändiges Werk über den jungen Heisenberg (bis zum Nobelpreis) zu finden; eine detaillierte Geschichte der Entwicklung von Heisenbergs wissenschaftlichen Ideen und Publikationen bietet das vielbändigen Werk von Mehra und Rechenberg “The Historical Development of Qunatum Theory“ – insbesondere Volume 2: ‘The Discovery of Quantum Mechanics. 1925’.

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⭐This book is a biography of the one of the most brilliant and enigmatic characters in the history of Physics. It gives a fair treatment of a man trying to negotiate a narrow and dangerous path through conflicting but strongly-held principles of patriotism and the love of homeland on the one hand, and of the purity of scientific research on the other. The treatment of Heisenberg’s highly technical work is remarkably readable. The treatment of the ethical difficulties of all scientists at this pivotal point of the history of Physics is enlightening. Highly recommended.

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