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Max Born: 1882-1970
by Jeanette Cain
Max Born, son to Professor Gustav, was born in Breslau, Poland, on December 11, 1882. He was an accomplished anatomist and embryologist who attended König Wilhelm's Gymnasium in Breslau. He was a German-British physicist and Nobel laureate. Further study was with the Universities of Breslau, Zürich, Göttingen, Cambridge and Heidelberg. It was at Breslav that he was introduced to matrix calculus by the well-known mathematician, Rosanes. He also studied astronomy and physics, but upon being graduated from the University of Göttingen in 1907, was awarded the Prize of the Philosophical Faculty for work on elastic and tapes in 1906.
At Göttingen he was an academic lecturer because of his work on the relativistic electron. He was invited by Michelson to give a lecture in Chicago in 1912. While there, he and Michelson experimented with Michelson's grating spectograph.
In 1913, Born married Margarete, née Kauffmann. His new bride came from a family of a Silesian industrialists. Three children were born to this marriage during the following years.
In 1915, Born had to join the German Armed Forces, rather than taking an appointment as a professor to assist Max Planck at Berlin University. It was at this time, in a scientific office of the army, that he worked on sound theory ranging. He also studied the theory of crystals, which became his first book publication, "Dynamik der Kristallgitter", or in English, "Dynamics of Crystal Lattices."
In 1919, the end of the First World War, he was appointed Professor at the University of Frankfurt, with Otto Stern as his assistant. Born went to Göttingen as Professor in 1921, remaining for twelve years. It was during this time that his most important works were created: a newer version of his book on crystals, and investigations on crystal lattices. Born also worked on a series of studies on quantum theory.
"Zur Quantummechanik" was a paper published by Max Born in 1924, marking the first time for use of the phrase "Quantum Mechanics."
His greatest contribution concerned the way in which we interpret the phrase "quantum mechanics." He asked questions, e.g., "What is this wavefunction?" and "What does it mean?"
From 1925-1926 he published investigations on the principles of quantum mechanics, or matrix mechanics, with, with Heisenberg and Jordan. After this, he worked alone on the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Born suggested that the only observable aspect of the wavefunction was its square, not the wavefunction itself. He believed correct interpretation of the wavefunction was the square of a given point of space and proportional to the probability finding of that particle at that point in space. The probability density is the square; the probability amplitude is the wavefunction.
Many German scientists, as well as Born, were forced to emigrate in 1933. At this time, he was invited to Cambridge and taught for three years as Stokes Lecturer. His work, collaborating with Infeld, became focused in the field of nonlinear electrodynamics.
Born spent six months at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore working with Sir C.V. Raman and his pupils. He became a Tait Professor of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh in 1936. Born worked until retiring in 1953 at which time he moved to Bad Pyrmont. He lived here until his death in 1970.
Born's list of accomplishments, awards, and fellowships is quite lengthy. One of these was a shared 1954 Nobel Prize in physics with German physicist Walter Bothe. Works include:
Einstein's Theory of Relativity-1922
Atomic Physics-1935
Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance-1949
Physics and Politics-1962
My Life and My Views-1968
A complete list will be found at the sources listed below.
References:
Max Born
Biography from the Nobel e-Museum archives of scientists.
Max Born
Provided by Dan Thomas. Published July 5, 1996.
Related links
Born - Physics Faces
Photo of Born and his son with short bio for children.
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