Schrodinger_Erwin

Erwin Schrodinger August 12, 1887-January 4, 1961 By Christine C. 

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 **Erwin Schrödinger's father, Rudolf Schrödinger, ran a small linoleum factory which he had inherited from his own father. Erwin's mother, Emily Bauer, was half English, this side of the family coming from Leamington Spa, and half Austrian with her father coming from Vienna. From 1906 to 1910 he was a student at the University of Vienna, during which time he came under the strong influence of Fritz Hasenöhrl, who was Boltzmann's successor. It was in these years that Schrödinger acquired a mastery of eigenvalue problems in the physics of continuous media, thus laying the foundation for his future great work. Hereafter, as assistant to Franz Exner, he, together with his friend K. W. F. Kohlrausch, conducted practical work for students (without himself, as he said, learning what experimenting was). During the First World War he served as an artillery officer. In 1920 he took up an academic position as assistant to Max Wien, followed by positions at Stuttgart (extraordinary professor), Breslau (ordinary professor), and at the University of Zurich (replacing von Laue) where he settled for six years. In later years Schrödinger looked back to his Zurich period with great pleasure - it was here that he enjoyed so much the contact and friendship of many of his colleagues, among whom were Hermann Weyl and Peter Debye. It was also his most fruitful period, being actively engaged in a variety of subjects of theoretical physics. His papers at that time dealt with specific heats of solids, with problems of thermodynamics (he was greatly interested in Boltzmann's probability theory) and of atomic spectra; in addition, he indulged in physiological studies of colour (as a result of his contacts with Kohlrausch and Exner, and of Helmholtz's lectures). His great discovery, Schrödinger's wave equation, was made at the end of this epoch-during the first half of 1926. In 1927 Schrödinger moved to Berlin as Planck's successor. Germany's capital was then a centre of great scientific activity and he enthusiastically took part in the weekly colloquies among colleagues, many of whom "exceeding him in age and reputation". With Hitler's coming to power (1933), however, Schrödinger decided he could not continue in Germany. He came to England and for a while held a fellowship at Oxford. In 1934 he was invited to lecture at Princeton University and was offered a permanent position there, but did not accept. In 1936 he was offered a position at University of Graz, which he accepted only after much deliberation and because his longing for his native country outweighed his caution. With the annexation of Austria in 1938, he was immediately in difficulty because his leaving Germany in 1933 was taken to be an unfriendly act. Soon afterwards he managed to escape to Italy, from where he proceeded to Oxford and then to University of Ghent. After a short stay he moved to the newly created Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin, where he became Director of the School for Theoretical Physics. He remained in Dublin until his retirement in 1955.**

He was an only child. In 1933 he left Germany because he disliked the Nazi's anti-semitism. Joined Oxford University, but did not work out because he lived with two different women. Was personal friends with Albert Einstein. Fled to Italy in 1939 because his detest of Nazis proved him as being "politically unreliable". Was scandaliously involved with students and fathered two children with two different Irish women. He died on January 4, 1961 in Vienna from tuberculosis at the age of 73. He was Roman Catholic. Is an influential figure of Max Planck.

   __ Schools Attented __ Akademisches Gymnasium - 1898 Franz Serafin Exner in Vienna - 1906 to 1910

 __Schools Taught__ University of Breslau - 1921 University of Zürich - 1924 Humboldt University of Berlin - 1927 University of Oxford - 1933 University of Graz - 1936 Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies - 1940

__ Positions Offered __ Princeton University - 1934

 Schrodinger Equation -This equation is the first of its type to be formed. This equation explains the behavior of atomic particles. Schrodingers Cat -This is a famous illustration in the principle in quantum theory of [|superposition] - If you desire, you can check out this [|interractive schrodinger cat] Schrodinger Method - This is used to problems of distribution and occupancy. [|All of the formulas and such]

 Nobel Prize in physics - 1933