He had read Weyl and also Bachmann's text which gave a complete survey of number theory and this was to be his intended research topic for his doctorate. During the summer of 1920 Heisenberg was, as he had been for some time, intending to study pure mathematics at university. He recovered, despite the problems of obtaining suitable food, in time to begin his university studies. He nearly died of typhoid which he contracted after spending the night in a castle which had been used as a military hospital. In the period between taking his Abitur examination and entering the University of Munich, Heisenberg went off hiking with his youth group. He declined the offer of free accommodation from the Foundation, preferring to live with his parents. His examination results in mathematics and physics were classed as extraordinary, but his essay on "tragedy as poetic art" was much less impressive. Eleven scholarships were available and Heisenberg just made it by coming in eleventh place. In 1920 he took his Abitur examination and was one of two pupils entered from the Maximilians Gymnasium for a Bavarian wide competition for a scholarship from the Maximilianeum Foundation. In the Gymnasium Heisenberg led a youth movement and he later led a movement within the Young Bavarian League. I was a boy of 17 and I considered it a kind of adventure. Heisenberg took part in the military suppression of the Bavarian Soviet forces but, although it was a very serious business, the young men probably treated it almost as a game. In fact by this time he had become interested in number theory and he read Kronecker's work and tried to find a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.Īfter the war ended in 1918 the situation in Germany became unstable with different factions trying to take power by force. He spent his spare time playing chess, which he did to a very high standard, and also read mathematics texts he had taken with him. It was a time of great hardship with long hours of labour made worse since there was insufficient food. This work took him away from home for the first time in 1918 when he was sent to work on a dairy farm in Upper Bavaria. Heisenberg also worked on farms as his contribution to another voluntary organisation which sent the boys to help in the fields in spring and summer. During this period he belonged to a paramilitary organisation which operated in the Gymnasium with the intention of preparing the young men for later military service. In fact his mathematical abilities were such that in 1917 he tutored a family friend who was at university in calculus. His best subjects were mathematics, physics and religion but his record throughout his school career was excellent all round. Lessons were arranged in different buildings and as a result of the disruption Heisenberg undertook much independent study which probably had a beneficial effect on his education. In 1914 World War I began and the Gymnasium was occupied by troops. This of course was the school where his grandfather was the headmaster. There he attended the Elisabethenschule from September, spending only one year at this school before entering the Maximilians Gymnasium in Munich. In June 1910, a few months after his father took up the professorship, Werner and the rest of the family moved to Munich. He spent three years at that school but then in 1909 his father was appointed Professor of Middle and Modern Greek at the University of Munich. In September 1906, shortly before his fifth birthday, Werner enrolled in a primary school in Würzburg. In private, however, they expressed their lack of religious beliefs, and in particular they brought up their children to follow Christian ethics but showed total disbelief in the historical side of Christianity. A Christian belief was expected of people of their status so for them it was a social necessity. August and Anna, however, were only religious for the sake of convention. He was an Evangelical Lutheran and his wife Anna had converted from being a Roman Catholic to make sure there were no religious problems with their marriage. a rather stiff, tightly controlled, authoritarian figure. Werner had an older brother Erwin, born in March 1900, who was therefore nearly two years older than the subject of this biography. August and Anna were married in May 1899. Anna's father, Nikolaus Wecklein, was the headmaster of the Maximilians Gymnasium in Munich and it was while August Heisenberg was a trainee teacher at that school that he had met Anna. At the time that Werner was born his father was about to progress from being a school teacher of classical languages to being appointed as a Privatdozent at the University of Würzburg. Biography Werner Heisenberg's father was August Heisenberg and his mother was Anna Wecklein.
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