Beschreibung:

HEISENBERG, Werner. Three autograph letters to Samuel Goudsmit in German (1902-1978) comprising: Autograph letter signed ("Werner Heisenberg") Göttingen 21 November [1925]. 2 pages on a single sheet, slightly worn, two punch holes to left margin, not affecting text . - Autograph letter signed ("Werner Heisenberg") Göttingen, 9 December 1925. 2 pages on stationery of the "Institut für theoretische Physik der Universität," folded, few marginal tears, one with tape repair, two punch holes to left margin, not affecting text .. -- Autograph letter signed ("W. Heisenberg") Göttingen, 19 February 1926. 2 pages on a single sheet, two punch holes to left margin, affecting two letters . Historic, very detailed scientific letters reacting to the discovery of electron spin, showing how Heisenberg grappled with the difficulties presented by a basic new discovery in quantum physics. The three autograph letters document the progress of Heisenberg's and Wolfgang Pauli's efforts to solve the problem up to the actual day before H. L. Thomas provided the missing solution. {1} Having studied in Goettingen under Arnold Sommerfeld and Max Born, Heisenberg was at this time teaching at the University of Goettingen. A few months after our last letter, in May of 1926, Heisenberg would move to Copenhagen to work with Neils Bohr. Heisenberg's first autograph letter to Goudsmit was written only days after the November 16 submission of Max Born, Heisenberg, and Pascual Jordan's famous paper on the foundations of quantum mechanics. [See lot 31]. This autograph letter written by the 24 year old Heisenberg to his 23 year old contemporary, Goudsmid, raises Heisenberg's objection that the doublet separation predicted by Goudsmit's and Uhlenbeck's formulation was too large by a factor of two. So promptly did Heisenberg react to Goudsmit's discovery that Goudsmit apparently received this letter one day after the day his paper was published: Your courageous article published in Naturwissenschaften is of such great interest to me that I would like to address a number of questions to you. You are entirely correct in stating that one can never extinguish all of the principal difficulties of the muliplet structure like waving a magician's wand, if one presumes the magnetic momentum of an electron; and I am convinced that all of the formular difficulties (as the appearance of about j (j+1) instead of j2 etc.) could be eliminated by means of quantum mechanics. But I have some reservations, which are perhaps the result of my own shortcomings, about the thinking regarding the selective separation. If one determines more clearly (according to your model) the reciprocal action , one arrives, as far as I can see, at FIX FORMULAS ON SCREEN (1) D r 7 h = K 7 h 7 Z2 a2 Z2 7 2 7 Dm n3k2 where Dm denotes the change of the projection from r, that is of mechanical movement to K. If, for instance, Factor 2, which originates in the double magnetism of an electron, did not exist, it would be most like that (1) is the realistic formula; only instead of1 k (h-1) one would get1/k - 1 which most probably would result according to the considerations of quantum mechanics. It is certainly true that now you can determine the Z4 law through magnetism. My question to you is, how you eliminated Factor 2. I also would like to hear your opinion about the the prohibition of the equivalent paths as advanced by Pauli, as well as about your theory of the hydrogen spectrum. After all, with hydrogen there has got to be some relativity, if one doesn't think of the relativity theory as somehow wrong." {2}. Heisenberg continued his correspondence in a slightly more philosophical vein two weeks later on December 9, showing that he was continuing to work on the matter. The fact that during two weeks' time Goudsmit had already responded twice to Heisenberg's letter of November 21, and that Heisenberg was apologetic in his slow response, reminds us how prompt and intense written correspondence could be