Publish at July 07 2015 Updated November 21 2024
What is it that leads rather gifted children to become Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford or Heisenberg W , those great physicists of the 20th century? Biographies often reveal forks in the road, moments of serendipity that lead researchers to find what they weren't looking for.
They show that learning styles and intellectual profiles are not homogeneous within a scientific community. Some researchers are rather isolated, while others work primarily in research groups. Many are focused on their discipline, while others are also excellent musicians or poetry lovers.
These biographies also show that it is often impossible to say whether an event is good or bad without a few years' hindsight...
Niels Bohr was the second child of a father who taught physiology and a mother who was one of the first women in Denmark to attend university. His father regularly invited teachers and intellectuals to his home. They debated among themselves, and the children were allowed to attend and take part in the conversations. Niels Bohr, in turn, sought throughout his life to create these spaces for free speech and intellectual exchange.
Niels Bohr quickly demonstrated his tenacity and perfectionism. He is said to have written 14 versions of his thesis, and to have had it bound with blank pages, in order to continue improving it once he had obtained his doctorate... Not only does he produce scientific writings, but he also scrupulously reads those of others, and regularly makes corrections.
At the age of 18, he enrolled at university and set up the "Ekliptica" discussion group, with a dozen students, most of whom went on to brilliant and diverse careers (psychology, politics, arts...). But there's only one physics professor for the whole university, and no laboratory. Experiments have to be carried out at home, or in the laboratories of private companies! The second obstacle was that Bohr's thesis, written in Danish, was incomprehensible to the scientific community... So he had to leave his country and travel to Great Britain.
Here begins a series of episodes and turnarounds, which show that what at first appears to be misfortune turns out, on the contrary, to be a springboard.
These episodes in Niels Bohr's life show how seemingly definitive obstacles (mastering the language, the lack of a physical science culture in Denmark...) turned out to be opportunities.
Let's continue for a few more years. Here was Niels Bohr in Great Britain, with Rutherford, concentrating on their study of electrons... But then war broke out. It could have put an end to our physicist's progress. On the contrary, the laboratories were emptied of British scientists, who were called upon to carry out military research. Niels Bohr could not take part, as he was Danish, and was completely free to pursue his experiments.
Back in Denmark after the First World War, Niels Bohr's rise could have come to a halt. But it didn't. In Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq recalls the effervescence that surrounded Niels Bohr, and how he inspired and encouraged many of the scientists who worked with him.
Bohr also left his mark on the history of physics through his debates with Einstein, particularly at the Fifth Solvay Congress in Belgium. These exchanges show that the history of ideas and science is also built on disagreements and confrontations.
Werner Heisenberg was born at a time when the end of the great discoveries in the physical sciences was being heralded. The discipline was not yet as highly regarded as it is today. His father, August, taught Byzantine philology. He got his children to work with games, and encouraged them to learn music.
Around the age of 19, Werner enters the Gymnasium. His studies were mainly devoted to languages, German and a little mathematics. Attentive to his son's interest in this discipline, August gave him books... written in Latin. Young Werner learned on his own, using these books and the problems his father set him.
As a general rule, I'd say that you only learn in courses where you work on problems. It's essential that students try to solve problems [...]. Merely listening is of little use."
Heisenberg, 1963
Werner Heisenberg soon became socially and politically active. He escaped the First World War. Shortly afterwards, however, he enlisted to defend Bavaria against Bolshevism. He leads a group of "New Explorers". These young people were disillusioned with the modern world and wanted to rediscover values centered on the individual and nature. Values close to German Romanticism, and often opposed to technology and science... Heisenberg's group met mainly to walk in nature, talk music and poetry.
Heisenberg maintained a lifelong passion for music, Romantic poetry, philosophy and walking. Indeed, it was for philosophical reasons that he first became interested in quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.
At this stage, as was the case with Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg encountered a number of difficulties that proved to be opportunities.
With his father's support, Werner sat an exam to take part in an advanced mathematics course. But he confessed his interest in applied mathematics and... was not admitted. This failure led him to turn to the physical sciences, considered less noble.
The crisis in Germany makes it impossible to heat classrooms at Munich University. Students are encouraged to learn at home. An opportunity for Heisenberg, who excelled atself-study. But while he deepened his knowledge of certain concepts, he also made a few dead ends, which earned him a failing grade on his doctorate in 1923. His graduation was only possible thanks to long debates within the teaching team.
More anecdotally, Werner Heisenberg suffered an allergic reaction to pollen in 1925, forcing him to stop his work and go into exile on the North Sea island of Heligoland. There, he made daring discoveries, pausing only for nature walks and to read Goethe!
The intellectual itinerary of Werner Heisenberg presented here is incomplete; it is also made up of numerous encounters, with Planck, Sommerfeld, Born and Pauli, all excellent physicists in their own right. Some of his students also went on to become renowned researchers.
Because they are a selection of events, the exercise is more storytelling than history. Albert Einstein, for example, has often been portrayed as a former dunce, to give courage to young people who are at odds with mathematics. So much so, in fact, that today's biographers are obliged to publish Einstein's school reports in order to disprove their claims!
And as a bonus, here are some of the not-always-in-good-faith retorts that these lives can inspire (click to enlarge).
Illustrations: Frédéric Duriez
Jaume Navarro Bohr et le modèle de l'Atome - Collection Grandes idées de la science - 2012 - traduction Isabelle Langlois-Lefebvre
Jesùs Navarro Faus Heisenberg et le principe d'incertitude - Collection Grandes idées de la science - 2012 - traduction Mariane Millon.
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