3 ms·
> In his laboratory work Heisenberg had to use a Fabry-Perot interferometer, a device for observing the interference of light waves, on which Wien had lectured
by bowsamic 4y ago
> In his laboratory work Heisenberg had to use a Fabry-Perot interferometer, a device for observing the interference of light waves, on which Wien had lectured extensively. But Heisenberg had no idea how to derive the resolving power of the interferometer nor, to Wien's surprise, could he derive the resolving power of such common instruments as the telescope and the microscope. When an angry Wien asked how a storage battery works, the candidate was still lost. Wien saw no reason to pass the young man, no matter how brilliant he was in other fields.
As a physicist, I feel like standards were much higher then! There's no way you would fail a student these days for not being able to derive something on the spot or know anything about a subject that isn't directly related to their PhD topic
Also a great illustration at points here of "imposter syndrome", or really that Heisenberg actually _was_ an imposter in certain senses. I understand it all too well. Being a physicist, or any kind of scientist, can be extremely emotional taxing and alienating
> When Heisenberg derived the uncertainty relations several years later, he used the resolving power of the microscope to derive the uncertainty relations-and he still had difficulty with it! And again, when Bohr pointed out the error, it led to emotional difficulties for Heisenberg.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoIt’s true of any profession. Most people only learn the exact skills they need for their very specific job. If you ask them about anything slightly out of the way they won’t know. (Some people are exceptions of course) I think it’s one of the downsides of economic specialization. Although the upsides probably outweigh it substantially.
- tom-thistime 4y agoI don't think Heisenberg was necessarily a narrow specialist, trained for just one job. He was one of the inventors of a whole new theory of mechanics.
- bowsamic 4y agoWhy would that imply he wasn't a narrow specialist?
- mannykannot 4y agoThere is a very real sense that what he was a 'specialist' in was figuring out what's fundamental to all of physics - so not so narrow.
- bowsamic 4y agoWell yeah but that is more of a coincidence that he happened to be a specialist in something with wide effects. QM had implications far beyond just those fundamentals, but I would imagine that he would not have known much about those fields that QM ended up having an effect on. For example, did he know much about optics, which was one of the fields most heavily affected by QM? The widespread impact of your field and the specificity of actually working in your field are two very different things.
- mannykannot 4y agoCoincidence?
- bowsamic 4y agoMeaning that he happened to work on something that had widespread effect, he didn’t plan for it. It was luck that quantum mechanics was so successful
- mannykannot 4y agoI think it is clear that Heisenberg, Sommerfeld, Born and others at the forefront of theoretical physics at the time were well aware of how important and far-reaching the issues that comprised Heisenberg's real work were. As explained in the article, his diversion into hydrodynamics was purely to secure a doctorate from a physics establishment which had not yet caught up to this fact, and I would say that, if anything, it is this establishment which suffered a surfeit of narrow specializations.
- psychphysic 4y agoI'm not convinced people fail PhD viva all the time. It's only a real fail if they tell you to give up
- bowsamic 4y agoIndeed in modern times you will know far in advanced whether or not you will pass
- oh_my_goodness 4y agoTraditionally that's the defense, not the oral qualifying exam.