Heisenberg’s 1958 Weltformel and the Roots of Post-Empirical Physics

Springer Verlag (2019)
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Abstract

This book presents the first detailed account of Werner Heisenberg’s failed attempt to find a theory of everything in the autumn of his career. It further investigates what we can learn from his failure in relation to the search for a final theory of physics, an endeavour that continues to define research in fundamental physics to this day. Thereby it provides the first historically informed contribution to the current debate on post-empirical physics and the state of particle physics.

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9783030206444   9783030206451   3030206440   3030206467

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-20645-1
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Conclusions

After having charted the rise and fall of Heisenberg’s non-linear spinor theory, it is now time to analyse this story for what it has to say on issues of non-empirical theory construction and non-standard theory assessment, as they are also currently being debated.

Reception and Rejection

Pauli presented Heisenberg’s and his new approach to non-linear spinor theory for the first time to a small crowd of physicists in Milan, on his way to board his ocean liner in Genova, on 18 January 1958. But the first presentation to a large audience was given on February 1 at Columbia University.

Heisenberg Triumphant

In this section, I will discuss two key breakthroughs achieved by Heisenberg in the years 1957/58, which ultimately convinced him that he was on the right track, led him to present his theory in several overblown public presentations, and temporarily even convinced Pauli to join Heisenberg in his en... see more

The Origins of Heisenberg’s Program

Heisenberg’s path of constructing a novel, fundamental theory on the basis of the philosophical principle of reductive monism has its origins in the manifold constraints on scientific research in postwar Germany. In 1941, Heisenberg had become director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, th... see more

Introduction

In 1958, Werner Heisenberg, in his 57th year, jumped the shark. At the Max Planck centennial in Berlin, he presented what others would label his Weltformel , a final theory reducing all of physics, known and unknown, to the interactions of one elementary quantum field.

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Alex Blum
New York University (PhD)

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