Schrodinger: Difference between revisions
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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.
=== Unhappy Time in Oxford ===
In Berlin, Schrodinger had attended the remarkable seminars in theoretical physics together with world-leading stars such as Einstein, Planck, Nernst, von Laue and with highly promising younger colleagues including Delbruck, Szilard, Wigner and Weisskopf. In Zurich, Schrodinger had also attended seminars together with brilliant ETH professors such as Debye and Weyl. This had inspired him to dream up his equation. But there was no such seminar of this quality at Oxford. Schrodinger's friend, Karl Popper wrote :
<blockquote>
In Oxford I met Schrodinger and had long conversations with him. He was very unhappy in Oxford... In Oxford, he had been very hospitably received. He could not of course expect a seminar of giants, but what he did miss was the passionate interest in theoretical physics, among students and teachers alike.
</blockquote>
His wife Anny summarised things rather succinctly
<blockquote>
In Oxford he was not so happy becaue Oxford is no scientific centre. He really was paid for nothing, just because he was Schrodinger. Of course, they gave him a high salary, but he had no duties whatsoever. He couldn't even give a lecture because the lectures are all made out. The scientific centre was Cambridge, of course, and not Oxford. He always called his high salary in Oxford, 'I feel like a charity case.'
</blockquote>
There are several other reasons why Schrodinger to find it hard to settle in Oxford. He was an independent and informal character. He did not like traditions, rules and formal dress, which are still prevalent in Oxford. He was a lone scientist and not a collaborator. Furthermore, as a Nobel Prize winner, he was at once distracted by many invitations to visit departments overseas. The emphasis at Oxford was also very much teaching and lectures to undergraduates followed up by written examniations. Schrodinger was not used to teaching in this way and preferred high-level lectures on the latest research.
=== March ===
The ICI financial support was also used to bring Arthur March to Oxford on leave from Innsbruck. March retained a junior professorial position at the University of Innsbruck, but he would need extra funds to live in Oxford. The justification for funding March was that he would collaborate with Schrodinger on a book on wave mechanics and would do research relevant to the interest of ICI.
In his three-year period in Oxford from 1933 - 1936 March did not have a college position and also did not have a formal position in the Physics Department. He did publish one scientific paper in 1935 in the "Transactions of the Faraday Society". This paper, written in English, describes the forces between colloidal particles. This area of research was of commercial interest to ICI. He did not provide an institution or address with his paper. This may have been intentional due to the ambiguity of his position at the time. At the end of his paper, he did express the acknowledgement : "I have much pleasure in thanking the Imperial Chemical Industries, whose generosity enabled me to carry out this investigation.
When March returned to Innsbruck in 1936 with his family, he did not publish again on colloids, reverting to his more fundamental theoretical work. He stayed in Innsbruck for the rest for his career, leading a department in theoretical physics.
== Wave Mechanics ==
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