Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Umdeutung paper
open-in-new
<p>In the <a href="/facts/History_of_physics/aXKxL48L">history of physics</a>, "On the quantum-theoretical reinterpretation of kinematical and mechanical relationships" , also known as the <i>Umdeutung</i> (reinterpretation) paper, was a breakthrough article in <a href="/facts/Quantum_mechanics/BRc3Mzgr">quantum mechanics</a> written by <a href="/facts/Werner_Heisenberg/n4qzYvj4">Werner Heisenberg</a>, which appeared in <i><a href="/facts/Zeitschrift_f%25C3%25BCr_Physik/B0VsWLSC">Zeitschrift für Physik</a></i> in September 1925. </p><p>In the article, Heisenberg tried to explain the energy levels of a one-dimensional <a href="/facts/Anharmonic_oscillator/GxK2WMWB">anharmonic oscillator</a>, avoiding the concrete but unobservable representations of <a href="/facts/Electron_configuration/TQjRr22P">electron orbits</a> by using observable parameters such as <a href="/facts/Transition_probabilities/5oP5hntk">transition probabilities</a> for <a href="/facts/Quantum_jumps/HeaF4JJk">quantum jumps</a>, which necessitated using two indexes corresponding to the initial and final states.: 153 </p><p>Mathematically, Heisenberg showed the need of non-commutative operators. This insight would later become the basis for Heisenberg's <a href="/facts/Uncertainty_principle/UUSoSp4T">uncertainty principle</a>. </p><p>This article was followed by the paper by <a href="/facts/Max_Born/6VnUDWhA">Max Born</a> and <a href="/facts/Pascual_Jordan/YNLoGJ5d">Pascual Jordan</a> of the same year, and by the 'three-man paper' (<a href="/facts/German_language/oWaQIDA8">German</a>: <i>drei Männer Arbeit</i>) by Born, Heisenberg and Jordan in 1926. These articles laid the groundwork for <a href="/facts/Matrix_mechanics/nJxC4pKP">matrix mechanics</a> that would come to substitute <a href="/facts/Old_quantum_theory/pXkHwvrh">old quantum theory</a>, leading to the modern quantum mechanics. Heisenberg received the <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics/o6w1nCbr">Nobel Prize in Physics</a> in 1932 for his work on developing quantum mechanics. </p>