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Max Born
Times obituary
Influential figure in 20th-century physics
Professor Max Born, F.R.S., who died in Germany at the age of 87, was one of the influential figures of 20th-century physics. He was respected and honoured for many important contributions to his subject and for his wisdom and success as a teacher. He was widely known for his exposition of the ideas of physics to the layman, and he was held in affection by his many colleagues and pupils for the warmth and simple directness of his personality
Max Born was born on December 11, 1882, in Breslau, where his father, Gustav Born, was a distinguished medical professor. As a student, he followed the German tradition of the wandering scholar, and his travels included periods at the universities of Breslau, Heidelberg, Zurich, Göttingen, and Cambridge. After holding teaching posts in Göttingen, Berlin, and Frankfurt, he was appointed to a chair in Göttingen in 1921, and there he developed one of the most successful schools of theoretical physics; he remained there until the advent of Hitler caused him to leave Germany.
The Göttingen days included his most important contributions to physics. He participated with Heisenberg and Jordan in proposing the matrix approach to quantum mechanics, one of the two alternative foundations of modern quantum theory. While the most imaginative step in this was taken by Heisenberg, the development of the work into a convincing theory owed much to Born. A little later, he proposed the physical interpretation of the formal theory in terms of probabilities. This step, which was essential to complete the logical structure of the new mechanics and its relation to reality, would probably have been taken long ago without him, but his paper was important in focusing the realization then growing dimly in many minds about the last required piece of reasoning and fully merited the rather delayed award of the Nobel Prize in 1954.
Prior to this, he had developed the atomic theory of crystals, and this work paved the way for modern solid-state physics. After the foundations of quantum mechanics were established, he continued to make many important and fundamental contributions, of which the Born-Oppenheimer method for describing molecules and the Born approximation in scattering are typical examples. On leaving Germany, he settled for a few years in Cambridge. He later spoke very warmly of the way in which he had been received and made welcome in this country. For the next few years, he and his wife devoted much effort to giving help and advice to others from Germany and Austria who had to emigrate.
After a short period in India, he became Tait Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh in 1936, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. Here he continued to work actively among many pupils in very diverse fields of physics, always interested in new ideas and willing to try unorthodox approaches. On retirement, he returned to Bad Pyrmont in Germany. His main interests then became the more philosophical aspects of physics and also the effect of science and technology on human affairs. He was deeply concerned about the danger to the world from future war and mass destruction, and he took the initiative in 1955 to get a statement on this subject signed by a gathering of Nobel Laureates. His thoughts on these and other matters are put down in his last book, My Life and My Views, published in 1968.
He leaves a wife; a son; and two daughters.
Influential figure in 20th-century physics
Professor Max Born, F.R.S., who died in Germany at the age of 87, was one of the influential figures of 20th-century physics. He was respected and honoured for many important contributions to his subject and for his wisdom and success as a teacher. He was widely known for his exposition of the ideas of physics to the layman, and he was held in affection by his many colleagues and pupils for the warmth and simple directness of his personality
Max Born was born on December 11, 1882, in Breslau, where his father, Gustav Born, was a distinguished medical professor. As a student, he followed the German tradition of the wandering scholar, and his travels included periods at the universities of Breslau, Heidelberg, Zurich, Göttingen, and Cambridge. After holding teaching posts in Göttingen, Berlin, and Frankfurt, he was appointed to a chair in Göttingen in 1921, and there he developed one of the most successful schools of theoretical physics; he remained there until the advent of Hitler caused him to leave Germany.
The Göttingen days included his most important contributions to physics. He participated with Heisenberg and Jordan in proposing the matrix approach to quantum mechanics, one of the two alternative foundations of modern quantum theory. While the most imaginative step in this was taken by Heisenberg, the development of the work into a convincing theory owed much to Born. A little later, he proposed the physical interpretation of the formal theory in terms of probabilities. This step, which was essential to complete the logical structure of the new mechanics and its relation to reality, would probably have been taken long ago without him, but his paper was important in focusing the realization then growing dimly in many minds about the last required piece of reasoning and fully merited the rather delayed award of the Nobel Prize in 1954.
Prior to this, he had developed the atomic theory of crystals, and this work paved the way for modern solid-state physics. After the foundations of quantum mechanics were established, he continued to make many important and fundamental contributions, of which the Born-Oppenheimer method for describing molecules and the Born approximation in scattering are typical examples. On leaving Germany, he settled for a few years in Cambridge. He later spoke very warmly of the way in which he had been received and made welcome in this country. For the next few years, he and his wife devoted much effort to giving help and advice to others from Germany and Austria who had to emigrate.
After a short period in India, he became Tait Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh in 1936, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. Here he continued to work actively among many pupils in very diverse fields of physics, always interested in new ideas and willing to try unorthodox approaches. On retirement, he returned to Bad Pyrmont in Germany. His main interests then became the more philosophical aspects of physics and also the effect of science and technology on human affairs. He was deeply concerned about the danger to the world from future war and mass destruction, and he took the initiative in 1955 to get a statement on this subject signed by a gathering of Nobel Laureates. His thoughts on these and other matters are put down in his last book, My Life and My Views, published in 1968.
He leaves a wife; a son; and two daughters.
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