Historical Figure
Erwin Schrödinger
1887–1961
Austrian–Irish theoretical physicist (1887–1961)
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Biography
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, sometimes written as Schroedinger or Schrodinger, was an Austrian–Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum theory. In particular, he is recognized for devising the Schrödinger equation, an equation that provides a way to calculate the wave function of a system and how it changes dynamically in time. He coined the term "quantum entanglement" in 1935. Schrödinger shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory."
In Their Own Words (5)
No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The "I" is chained to ancestry by many factors … This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory.
Writings of July 1918, quoted in A Life of Erwin Schrödinger (1994) by Walter Moore , 1994
\frac{\partial \psi}{\partial t} = -\frac{2 \pi i}{h} E \psi
The "Schrödinger equation", equation (3') in "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem, Vierte Mitteilung", Annalen der Physik (1926) , 1926
Not one word is said here of acausality, wave mechanics, indeterminacy relations, complementarity, … etc. Why doesn’t he talk about what he knows instead of trespassing on the professional philosopher’s preserves? Ne sutor supra crepidam. On this I can cheerfully justify myself: because I do not think that these things have as much connection as is currently supposed with a philosophical view of the world.
pp. vii-viii , 1951
Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.
As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91 , 1931
There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction... The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.
Chapter 4 , 1951
Timeline
The story of Erwin Schrödinger, told in moments.
At 38, during a Christmas holiday at a Swiss ski lodge with a woman who wasn't his wife, he produces the wave equation that bears his name. It describes how quantum particles behave over time. He publishes four papers in six months that rewrite physics.
Wins the Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac for "the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory." He immediately leaves Germany, repelled by the Nazis. Lands at Oxford, but his living arrangement with both his wife and his mistress causes a scandal. He moves on.
Publishes his famous thought experiment: a cat in a box with a quantum-triggered vial of poison is simultaneously alive and dead until someone opens the lid. He means it as a critique of quantum mechanics, not an endorsement. The cat outlives the criticism.
Publishes What Is Life?, a short book arguing that living organisms must store genetic information in an "aperiodic crystal." Francis Crick and James Watson both cite it as the book that led them to discover DNA's structure.
Dies of tuberculosis in Vienna at 73. He'd returned from Dublin in 1956 to a chair at his old university. Buried in Alpbach, Austria. His gravestone bears his equation.
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