Heisenberg+B6

December 5, 1901 - February 1, 1976 German physicist best known for the uncertainty principle

__Summarize their atomic theory:__ Heisenberg discovered that particles have a lot more energy over short distances and can borrow energy as long as it is paid back in a short period of time. What he came up with was that the position and energy of an particle can only be known to a certain amount. This is known as the uncertainty principle. This is believed to be the way a particle escapes the charge (forbidden potential well) at the nucleus of an atom and is the mechanics of radioactive decay. (It is impossible to measure the velocity and position of an electron at the same time.)

__What new discovery or understanding did they add to past models?:__ The past models of atoms was the quantum theory. Although the theory had been highly successful in certain situations, during the early 1920s three areas of research indicated that this theory was inadequate and would need to be replaced. These areas included the study of light emitted and absorbed by atoms (spectroscopy); the predicted properties of atoms and molecules; and the nature of light itself. Heisenberg engaged intensively in the theoretical study of all three of these areas of research; he was able to come up with the uncertainty principle, which sort of replaced the quantum theory. The uncertainty principle is able to explain how a particle escapes the charge at the nucleus of an atom and is the mechanics of radioactive decay. It also explains the "uncertainty relation" between the position and the momentum (mass times velocity) of a subatomic particle, such as an electron. This relation has profound implications for such fundamental notions as causality and the determination of the future behavior of an atomic particle. The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. --Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927

__Problem with their model that scientists now would find:__ The problem with the Uncertainty principle is that there's an energy operator (which applies in quantum mechanics), usually called the Hamiltonian and written as H; well there's really no "time operator" in quantum mechanics. This makes people argue a lot about the time-energy uncertainty relation - whether it exists, what it would mean if it did exist, and so on. Scientists have to be careful when finding the uncertainty relation between position and momentum of the atoms, because if they don't the equation can be affected or made wrong.

__Other:__ In 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Heisenberg due to his concept if the quantum mechanics and the applications of it thereafter (which would lead to discoveries of allotropic forms of hydrogen).

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