Werner Heisenberg Character Analysis in A Brief History of Time

In 1926, German scientist Heisenberg became famous for his uncertainty principle. The idea is that there is inherent uncertainty to all particles’ positions, and particles can act like waves, with a wider possible area of location. The impact of this discovery led to Heisenberg’s creation of quantum mechanics with Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac in the 1920s.

Werner Heisenberg Quotes in A Brief History of Time

The A Brief History of Time quotes below are all either spoken by Werner Heisenberg or refer to Werner Heisenberg. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

The Search for a Unifying Theory of the Universe Theme Icon

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Bantam edition of A Brief History of Time published in 1988.

The success of scientific theories […] led the French scientist the Marquis de Laplace […] to argue that the universe was completely deterministic. Laplace suggested that there should be a set of scientific laws that would allow us to predict everything that would happen in the universe.

Related Characters: ,

Page Number and Citation: 55

Explanation and Analysis:

Werner Heisenberg Character Timeline in A Brief History of Time

The timeline below shows where the character Werner Heisenberg appears in A Brief History of Time. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Human Curiosity and Ingenuity Theme Icon

Werner Heisenberg used this theory to create his uncertainty principle. To measure a particle’s position and velocity,... (full context)

Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, and Paul Dirac in the 1920s created quantum mechanics based on the uncertainty... (full context)

...light, although a wave, could act as a particle, being emitted only in certain quanta. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle made particles seem more like waves, with their movement spread out according to... (full context)