Schrodinger: Difference between revisions
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Finally, as I presume that you will arrive in Stockholm some day before the 10th and that it could be of some interest to you to become acquainted, before the festival, with some of the leading persons in our Academy, Mrs Pleijel and I would feel really honoured if you would partake together with some scientists of this town in a quiet dinner at our home in the Academy at the 9th of December (Saturday evening).
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Schrodinger received strict instructions for his visit to Stockholm from the Nobel Foundation who were organising the celebrations. For a report that would be published, he was asked to send a high-quality photograph of himself and a short biographical note of 1-2 pages containing the most important dates in his life, a summary of his most important work and especially that for which the Nobel Prize was awarded. He was also asked to send a copy of the short speech he was to give at the Nobel banquet, the Nobel lecture, and any associated photograph.
The invitation from the Royal Swedish Academy included the possibility of bringing family members to the celebratitons. Anny Schrodinger joined her husband. Dirac was not married at that time so his mother was his guest. Heisenberg also brought his mother. All the Laurates arrived with their female guests at Stockholm central station on the morning of 9 December. There were many cameramen and a photograph was taken here. They were taken to the Royal Grand Hotel for breakfast. Then, they were given a tour of Stockholm. In the evening they attended the dinner hosted by Professor Pleijel, the permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. A total of 32 Nobel laureates and ladies were present. The dinner went on until 12 am.
The 10th of December was the big day for the presentation of the Prizes on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. In the morning the Laureate parties were taken to the Swedish Museum. In the afternoon they were taken on a procession through the crowded streets to the grand ballroom of Stockholm Concert Hall. The Nobel Laureates were to be seated on the plafrom opposite King Gustaf V in the front row.
At 5pm the trumpets played and the Laureates, each escorted by a host, were taken to their velveted seats on the platform. It was a smaller set of Laureates than normal as Thomas Hunt Morgan from Caltech, who had won the Prize for Physiology or Medicine for explaining the role of the chromosome in heredity, was unable to attend and there was no Prize for Chemistry that year. The Chairman of the Nobel Foundation Dag Hammarskjold then gave a welcoming speech. Then there was a speech of reminiscences on Alfred Nobel by Ragnar Sohlman, the creator of the Nobel Foundation, who had been the executor of Nobel's will.
The Laureates were called in turn with Heisenberg first, followed by Schrodinger and then Dirac. Before the presentation of the Nobel Prizes by the King, Henning Pleijel gave a summary of the work of each Laureate that had led to the Nobel Prize. He started off by summarising the research of previous Nobel Prize winners on whose discoveries the new development in quantum mechanics were based. This included Planck, Einstein, Rutherford, Bohr and de Broglie. He then summarised the work of Heisenberg, who was presented with his Nobel Prize by the King. After this, it was Schrodinger's turn. Pleijei said :
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For your discovery of new fruitful forms of atomic physics and the application of these, the Royal Academy of Sciences has decided to award you the Nobel Prize. I request you to receive this from the hands of His Majesty the King.
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Schrodinger then bowed to the King who presented him with a heavy blue and gold leather case. This contained the 23-carat gold Nobel Prize medal struck by the Swedish Mint. On one side, the medal portrayed the face of Alfred Nobel and his birth and death dates in Latin numerals. The reverse had engraved the name E. Schrodinger, the year 1933, and an inscription from the Aeneid : "Inventas vitam iuvat exclouisse per artes" which translated is "It is beneficial to have improved life through discoveret arts". The case for the medal contained a cheque made out to E. Schrodinger for 85,000 Swedish Kroner. The King also presented a unique certificate designed by the Swedish artist Elsa Ortengren.
After the final award for Literature was made to Ivan Bunin, the Swedish National Anthem was played. The Laurates and their guests were then taken to the Nobel Banquet held back at the Grand Hotel where they were staying. After the dinner, the Nobel Prize winners were invited to give a short speech. Dirac gave a speech on how physics theories could be applied to economics. It is always a risk when scientists move outside their expert field and the reactions from those present were somewhat puzzled. Meanwhile, Heisenberg just give a simple vote of thanks.
The next day Schrodinger gave his Nobel Lecture. The title was "The Fundamental Idea of Wave Mechanics". He chose to discuss wave-matter duality. It was mainly an exposition of the ideas of de Broglie interpreted by Schrodinger. Heisenberg in his Nobel Lecture on "The Development of Quantum Mechanics" gave a balanced description of the improvements of the simple quantum theory that led to quantum mechanics. Starting off with Planck, describing his own work, and then those of Schrodinger and Dirac. He finished by mentioning Gamow's proposal that the forces in the nucleus are different to those in the electron shell of an atom. The whole new area of nuclear and elementary particle quantum physics was just starting.
Dirac's Nobel Lecture was more mathematical on "The Theory of Electrons and Positrons". He also gave one of the first tantalising proposal on anti-matter :
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If we accept the view of complete symmetry between positive and negative electric charge so far as concerns the fundamental laws of Nature, we must regard it rather as an accident that the Earth -- and presumably the whole solar system -- contains a preponderance of negative electrons and positive protons. It is quite possible that for some of the stars it is the other way about, being built up mainly of positrons and negative protons. In fact, there may be half the stars of each kind. The two kinds of stars would both show exactly the same spectra and there would no way of distinguishing them by present astronomical methods.
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Schrodinger deposited his 85,000 Swedish Kroner Nobel Prize cheque in a Swedish bank account. This meant that when he later had to leave Austria in a hurry in September 1938, the Nazis were unable to confiscate his prize money, which they did with other Nobel Prize winners who were forced to leave Austria.
== Wave Mechanics ==
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