When We Cease to Understand the World

Chapter 4 begins with an epigraph quoting a letter from physicist Werner Heisenberg to one of his colleagues, Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s work as “bullshit.” The preface opens with Schrödinger traveling to Munich in July 1926 to present his work. Schrödinger has made a discovery that “reined in the chaos of the quantum world, illuminating the orbits of electrons around the nucleus with an equation so elegant, exquisite and bizarre that some did not hesitate to call it ‘transcendent’” (91). His theory shows that subatomic particles behave like waves, meaning that they adhere to known laws of physics.

Heisenberg arrives in Munich to confront Schrödinger about his theories. Heisenberg’s work is “exceptionally abstract, philosophically revolutionary, and […] dreadfully complex” (92). In the middle of Schrödinger’s lecture, Heisenberg jumps up on the stage and declares that Schrödinger is wrong; particles do not behave like waves and cannot be “visualized.” Eventually, Heisenberg is thrown out of the room, but he remains convinced of his theory.

Part 1, entitled “Night in Heligoland,” describes how Heisenberg arrives at his particle theory. In 1925, Heisenberg has a bad allergic reaction to pollen while working at the University of Göttingen.