THE DISCOVERY OF S-MATRIX

HEISENBERG, WERNER.

Die 'beobachtbaren' Grössen in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen (+) Die beobachtbaren Grössen in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen. II.

Berlin, Springer, 1943. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 120, 1943. Entire volume offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, otherwise fine and clean. Pp. 513-538; Pp. 673-702. [Entire volume: VII, (1), 790 pp.].

First printing of Heisenberg's two seminal paper on the scattering matrix, or S-matrix. ""S-matrix" theory of particle scattering, especially in its later analytic forms, enjoyed considerable attention after the war, then again during the 1960's" (DSB). These papers are ranked by David Cassidy as being amoung his most important.

"The outbreak of world war in September 1939 profoundly affected Heisenberg and his career. Still of military age, he was ordered to report to the Army We apons Bureau (Heereswaffenamt) in Berlin. There the authorities asked him and other leading German nuclear physicists to investigate whether nuclear fission, discovered in Berlin a year earlier, could be used for large-scale energy production. Within two months Heisenberg completed a comprehensive report on the theory of chain reactions and their uses, including their use in an atomic bomb. Thereport made Heisenberg the leading specialist on nuclear energy in Germany.
In order to continue the promising research, the Army Weapons Bureau designated the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin the center of German fission research. After the departure of the institute's Dutchdirector, peter Debye, who chose emigration over German citizenship, Heisenberg was named adviser, and later acting director, of the institute and its nuclear research. At the same time, Heisenberg supervised preliminary reactor experiments in Leipzig. He also continued with high-energy interactions. In papers written between 1942 and 1944, Heisenberg developed a theory of particle collisions based, as in 1925, only upon the observable properties of the colliding particles. Theresulting "S-matrix" theory of particle scattering, especially in its later analytic forms, enjoyed considerable attention after the war, then again during the 1960's but renormalized field theories eventually found more followers." (DSB)

Cassidy 1943a, 1943b

Order-nr.: 49168