Thinking Allowed
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Heisenberg on Helgoland - the value of spending time in natural surroundings
"It was finally time to use his strange calculus to calculate the energy of a real physical system. As his excitement mounted he kept on making mistakes and correcting them, but finally he had it. When he looked at it he was struck with joy and astonishment. Out of the dance of calculations emerged an answer for the energy of the system, but crucially, this energy could only exist in a restricted set of values. In one fell swoop he had rediscovered Max Planck’s original formulation of quantum theory without explicitly using Planck’s energy formula. An answer this correct must be true. An answer this elegant must be true."
The story of Heisenberg - at the age of 23 - who escaped to a remote spot in nature to give himself the opportunity to think. The discovery was a fundamental finding in our understanding of quantum theory.
Source: wavefunction.fieldofscience.com
energy answer planck heisenberg true finally quantum theory
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