"An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them." ~ Werner Heisenberg
With a life dedicated to excellence, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976) was a star pupil who through carelessness received a "C" grade in his doctorate physics exams. Heisenberg learned that preparation was essential.
"Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability," he once observed.
One of the leading scientists of the 20th century, he was born in Würzburg, Germany. Heisenberg founded quantum mechanics which replaced classic Newtonian mechanics and led to the "discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen."
His Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Theory stated that the more closely an atomic particle is measured, the more its behavior changes.
"The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa," he wrote in 1927.
Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg worked with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. "Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it had been created," he said. His discoveries inspired others in the improvement of computer technology and communications.
