Werner Karl Heisenberg (; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a
German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of
quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough
paper. In the subsequent series of papers with
Max Born and
Pascual Jordan, during the same year, this
matrix formulation of
quantum mechanics was substantially elaborated. In 1927 he published his
uncertainty principle, upon which he built his
philosophy and for which he is best known. Heisenberg was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 "for the creation of
quantum mechanics". He also made important contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of
turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus,
ferromagnetism,
cosmic rays, and
subatomic particles, and he was instrumental in planning the first West German
nuclear reactor at
Karlsruhe, together with a
research reactor in Munich, in 1957. Considerable controversy surrounds his work on atomic research during
World War II.