Unravel the complex and controversial legacy of Werner Heisenberg, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of quantum mechanics and the father of the uncertainty principle. This deep-dive video explores his monumental scientific contributions, from matrix mechanics to the fundamental limits of knowing a particle’s position and momentum.
Beyond subatomic particles and physics theory, we confront his highly contested role during World War II. Heisenberg was a principal scientist in the German nuclear program raising profound questions about the moral responsibility of scientists. Did he actively seek to build a Nazi atomic bomb, or did he secretly sabotage the project, as some claim?
Explore the Copenhagen meeting with Niels Bohr, the internal conflict between science and political loyalty in the Third Reich, and why the Manhattan Project feared his genius. Discover the true story behind this conflicted German physicist and his enduring impact on science history and nuclear research.
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If you are interested in other Great Scientists, watch our related biographies below.
1. Charles Darwin https://youtu.be/HmEmWA2SlVc
2. Albert Einstein https://youtu.be/0zk-NVPYPWk
3. Oppenheimer https://youtu.be/0s9fpFPAC94
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Gee! The 5th Solvay conference had so many heavy weights participating it could bend light!
Habilitation is the highest academic degree in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, traditionally required for being promoted a university professor.
The Nazis weren’t that keen on developing nuclear weapons. They considered it “Jewish physics.” Not that they wouldn’t have been happy to use one if someone gave it to them, but their best scientists were working on more tangible things. Think Wernher von Braun.
Nazi did not have mean of developing atom bomb
Atom bomb was an act of revenge
Heisenberg’s method for estimating the critical mass of HEU was 13,000kg, just for the critical mass & significantly more weight than could be carried by a B-29. That and lack of gaseous diffusion was the most important reason that Heisenberg didn’t ask Speer for any additional resources and thus no Nazi Manhattan project was formed. Had things been different, London would still be a crater and we’d still be fighting the Germans.
I haven’t listened to this entire video I admit. But from everything I know about Heisenberg his only mission in returning to Germany at the start of the war was to make sure the Nazi’s never got their hands on a nuke. He was suspected of being anti Nazi? He most certainly was and his affection for his Jewish colleagues was genuine. I hate to see the reputation of Heisenberg slandered when we owe him for this.
What happens if Hitler was the first to use the atomic bomb on Britain?
He may have been the key saving Allies, if he refused to apply his skills in a more military application, or maybe he simply was somewhat passive under the Nazi?
Heisenberg was a Nazi decoy – and was not a major atomic researcher. The Nazis real atomic research was financed by the German Post Office. The secret atomic project has been detailed by Lost Battlefields of historian Tino von Struckmann. Struckmann has posted history lessons each Sunday on YouTube for the past 4 years. Pull up "The Last Niza Secret" under Lost Battlefields' history series on YouTube.
It’s time to cook.
As usual for English videos, the Netherlands is hardly mentioned, Astronomy and Physics were at a high level in the Netherlands..
It seems the development of the A-Bomb would be the ability to develop radiation, or like RADION suddenly found under homes over night watch.
The logic of having a healthy Government economy does suggest to have a good Military too within the economy.
It could be said, the Uncertainty Theory is the logic of why metal bends, not breaks, and brittle matter fall apart.
This is "Elisabeth Schumacher" yo. Werner Heisenberg's wife… yo?
Heisenberg was not a party man. He was a German nationalist. And boy was he an emphatic German nationalist
Oh boy!!! Another ww2 n@zi video, how unexpected for YouTube.
For real, are there so many because ppl have strong opinions and so the comments section will help the video rank high in the algorithm or is there external funding that's driving so many creators to produce them?
That image of the Brandenburger Tor isn't from 1938.
SAY MY NAME!
Thank god this German nationalist didn’t have people checking his math
Heisenberg dropped theoretical physics for eastern philosophy late in life. Nice bio, but they left out why Heisenberg sabotaged the Nazis efforts to develop the A bomb.
Thanks for the upload guys. Great to hear about Walter White's past life! On a more serious note, the explanation of Heisenberg's scientific discoveries, which were pretty complex, were easy to follow here. Same as your videos on Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc., its accessible for those of us who literally know nothing about physics. Nicely done.
Love story❤😢
Andrew Jacked, His Vee-Taper in back-pose was the stand-out-statement.
Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Even in Star Trek with the Heisenberg Compensator for the transporter, so it would work within the physics known at the time.
25:28 Yes I often look back at that photo and others of the Solvay conferences, those were indeed special times, I wonder if they knew just how significant those meetings were, the biggest names of all of science truly awe inspiring ! the discoveries made by that bunch of people…
I posit that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is nothing more than a fundamental misinterpretation of reality-yes it is true that as you narrow down either speed or position you lose data on the other, and that is where the wrinkle in the thinking is-you are not SUPPOSED to look at these qualities separately ! after all, have you ever seen ANYTHING in nature that is controlled only by ONE of these factors ? it's right there in the name-SPACE-TIME…the problem is that humans brain are not geared up to look at space-time the way it truly is. Light (photons) are a different kettle of fish, in that a PHOTON is in fact TIMELESS, it has no mass, does not age one single bit as it travels along, it could go from one side of the universe to here and not even stop to take a piss, or grow a beard, nothing ! I also posit this is why many scientist's and investigators are having such an awful time of it when they try to study entanglement with photons, they keep talking about how impossible it is for some particle to "know" a state of another before anyone even looks but of course they cannot wrap their heads around the fact that there is NO "then" and "now" with these particles, time does NOT apply to these little buggers and humans sadly evolved from things that watched other things swing in trees and that sadly is the basis of our tiny little minds….A to fucking B through a god damned tree….this is why it is truly the closest thing to a miracle when someone like Albert Magnus Einstein comes along and raises us all onto a higher level of understanding, and doing it all while working as a patent clerk ! I say miracle because you see, Einsteins brain, particularly the part that deals with spatial reasoning and dimension was actually about 13 percent more developed that the rest of us…if such a small change can give rise to a genius then what happens when we identify the genes for cerebral development and upregulate the specific proteins for ALL regions of the cerebral cortex ? the more I think about it, it seems like the most obvious way to open the door to a whole new era of higher intelligence.