Werner Heisenberg - Reality and Its Order

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Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize winner for his discovery of quantum mechanics and one of the eminent scientists of the twentieth century, wrote this essay during the war years 1941/42. Only relatives and reliable friends obtained a copy, but he did not think of publishing it. Considering some of the contents, this would have been very dangerous in the political situation. Therefore, the text is a sketch without references. In this essay, Heisenberg summarizes his philosophical thoughts about nature and about the question how man can know what reality is.

On July 10, 1941, Heisenberg wrote to his wife Elisabeth: Towards evening I wrote on the private philosophy, and started the passage about the roses. I now write on these things with great enjoyment. Not always with a clear conscience, because, basically, I understand almost nothing of all these things. But since Bohr probably will not write down his thoughts, it is good that anyone who knows them is writing down what he makes of it. In Urfeld I could maybe seat myself at the little table in the bushes and also continue pursuing these thoughts.

After Heisenbergs death, the editors of his Collected Works (Gesammelte Werke) published this text under the title Ordnung der Wirklichkeit. It appeared in 1989 with Piper publishers and included an introduction by Helmut Rechenberg. The Heisenberg Society issues here a new edition, for the first time in English, and with the addition of a commentary on the literary, musical, philosophical and historical background. The commentary is written by the science historian Ernst Peter Fischer. The citations [C1], [C2], etc. in Heisenbergs text alert the reader to the existence of a related comment.

The Heisenberg Society is grateful to the Heisenberg family for their permission to publish this new edition. In particular, Irene and Jochen Heisenberg have contributed in many ways to the genesis of this work, and our sincere thanks go to them. Likewise, we thank Max Rechenberg for allowing us to include the introduction by his father, Helmut Rechenberg, written in 1988. We also acknowledge the excellent work of the translators M. B. Rumscheidt and N. Lukens. For editing the book and her ever-friendly collaboration we thank Angela Lahee.

Physicist Werner Heisenberg (19011976) is one of the great natural scientists who have given shape to how the world will view itself beyond the twentieth century. He succeeded in establishing the point of departure of todays quantum mechanics and made specific contributions to the effective description of atoms and molecules. His indeterminacy relations provided the key to the physical-epistemological interpretation of this new theory. Finally, he did decisive pioneer work in the expansion and coordination of quantum and relativity theory. Above all, he confronted problems of the innermost structure of matter. He was engaged, in other words, in what we today call nuclear and elementary particle physics.

In lectures and articles Heisenberg frequently took a position on questions that went beyond the narrower boundaries of his scholarly specialty. He particularly sought to make the findings of modern physics, its epistemological foundations and philosophical conclusions accessible to a broader public. This led to individual publications as well as collections of articles with such titles as