MAX BORN: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS, AWARDS, RECOGNITIONS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Max Born (1882-1970) was a German physicist and mathematician of Jewish origin, considered one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. In fact, he has been listed as one of the great men of science. His most important works were The Restless Universe (1939) and Dynamical Theory of Cristal Lattices (1953).

Born was noted for his contributions to quantum physics. His most notable contribution was his interpretation of the Schödinger wave function. According to this theory, the square of the amplitude of the function is equal to the probability density of the state.

Max Born. Source: Quibik (public domain).

Born was convinced of the great dilemma facing - and still faces - the scientific world; Through research and experiments, science presents man with two possibilities: that of living in a happy and carefree world and that of turning the word "future" into something devoid of meaning. The latter can happen if scientific knowledge is not applied to do good.

Therefore, Born explained in his innumerable presentations that man should be able to choose the circumstances in which he wishes to live, bearing in mind that reason well used has the power to stop the path to destruction.

Biography

Max Born was born on December 11, 1882, in the Polish city of Wroclaw (German Wroclaw). His father, Gustav Jacob Born, was a professor of embryology at the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Wroclaw and his mother, Margarette Kauffmann, was from a wealthy textile industry family.

Born lost his mother at age four and had two brothers, Käthe and Wolfgang (the latter was the son of his father by a second wife named Bertha Lipstein). When his mother passed away, Max Born's education was left in the hands of a governess.

On August 2, 1913, he married Hedwig Ehrenberg. From this union three children were born: Irene, Gritli and Gustav.

With the First World War, Born joined the army (1915), specifically in a technical unit for wireless communications. This originated in Born an antimilitarist position, acquiring a very critical vision of the warlike nonsense.

The physicist died in the city of Göttingen on January 5, 1970 at the age of 87. In addition to his contributions to the scientific world, his great contribution consisted in the importance of ethics in human work, which should be reflected in the activities of every scientist.

Studies

Max Born received a liberal and comprehensive education at the König-Wihelm Gymnasium. In this educational center he learned classical Greco-Latin culture and music, but he specialized in natural sciences.

Likewise, he began his university studies by enrolling in a wide variety of courses, since he was interested in receiving the widest possible training. He completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Breslau, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Zurich.

In 1904 he entered the University of Göttingen, where he met three renowned mathematicians: Felix Klein (1849-1925), David Hilbert (1862-1943) and Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909).

At this university, Born defended his thesis Studies on the stability of the elastic line in plane and space, under different boundary conditions to obtain his doctorate in mathematics on June 13, 1906.

Soon after, Born turned to studying Albert Einstein's groundbreaking articles on the photoelectric effect and the theory of special relativity. The young scientist was hopelessly fascinated by the new physics.

Then, in 1912, he was invited by Albert Michelson (1852-1931) to give a lecture on relativity at the University of Chicago. This invitation was decisive, since he took advantage of it to carry out spectroscopy experiments in Michelson's laboratory.

His jobs as a university professor

Max Born was a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin, where he related to Albert Einstein, who was his professor and friend. However, Einstein did not share Born's idea that nature was governed by statistical laws.

In 1921, the scientist was selected to teach physics classes at the University of Göttingen, initiating a series of seminars that attracted the presence of those interested in atomic physics. Interesting controversies are remembered from these talks. In fact, the ideas that were exchanged there produced the best of his work.

However, due to his status as a Jew, he could not remain invisible to Nazism and left the chair. He moved to the United Kingdom and became a British citizen with the aim of being a professor again at the University of Cambridge. During this time he conducted research in nonlinear electrodynamics.

Later, after a tour of various centers (such as his stay in Bangalore, India), he was invited by Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970), who secured him a stable position as Tait Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. This work was carried out from October 1935 to March 1936.

This was a great honor for Born, as he was one of only three refugee physicists to secure a permanent post in Britain during the 1930s. Specifically in Edinburgh, where Born and his wife spent seventeen years of their lives.

The Solvay Congress

In late 1925 and early 1926, Born presented several lectures on crystal theory and quantum mechanics in the United States. In October 1927 he attended the fifth Solvay Congress, the most famous of all, which was held in Brussels during the month of October.

The main theme of this congress was Electrons and Photons, where the best physicists in the world (seventeen of the twenty-nine attendees had been or would be awarded the Nobel Prize) discussed quantum theory. Max Born was about to turn 45 years old.

Solvay Conference (1927). Source: Benjamin Coupre (public domain)

Contributions

New ideas from physics

In his classes and lectures, Max Born stated that the new ideas of physics came to be a different vision of reality. It indicated that the world is not stable and permanent and that it is totally linked to our perception of it.

Born unreservedly accepted the principle of complementarity; This makes the pessimistic views that Born had regarding man's possibilities to understand the physical world understandable and even natural.

The physicist also considered classical determinism in detail. In an article titled Is Classical Mechanics in fact deterministic? (1955), presented a study where he established how a small change in the initial conditions of a system would considerably alter the trajectory of a particle in a gas.

Born concluded that the determinism associated with classical mechanics was not real either. In this way, it constantly indicated that the world changes before our eyes, interacts with us and the knowledge it provides must be interpreted by us.

Born's work and research originated a new concept: whatever the fundamental units that make up the world, they are delicate, changeable, and more surprising than human beings can perceive with their limited senses.

Max Born and the Nobel Prize

After seventeen years in Scotland, Born reached the age of retirement. He and his wife returned to Germany, among other things, to try to collaborate in the necessary reconciliation of the country.

They resided in the small town of Bad Pyrmont, located in Lower Saxony. In this place he received in 1954 the official announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Born was pleasantly surprised by the news since, at seventy-two years of age, he no longer expected it. The Prize was awarded to him for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wave function, being shared with Walther Bothe (1891-1957).

The ethical responsibility of the scientist

The news from Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a severe emotional impact on Born. Faced with nuclear threats, the fear of a new war returned to the scene.

In this way, Born was one of the first scientists to assume his ethical responsibility. He suggested to Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a figure in the pacifist movements, the idea of ​​preparing a manifesto signed by several Nobel laureates that would be addressed to different governments.

The document was written by Russell and called The Russell-Einstein Manifesto. It was signed by eleven leading scientists, including Born. This manifesto was made public on July 9, 1955.

Max Born repeatedly wondered if all peace efforts made sense; he wondered about all the hardships to which the peoples are subjected, as well as the responsibility of all those who take part in these events and also those who do not participate. In other words, the scientist wondered about the maxims of human behavior.

Awards and honours

- Prize of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Göttingen, for his study on the stability of cables and elastic bands.

- In 1948, he received the Max Planck Medal for his extraordinary contributions in theoretical physics.

- In 1950, the Royal Society awarded her the Hughes Medal for her contributions to theoretical physics in general and for her contributions to quantum mechanics.

- In honor of Max Born, the Born lunar crater was named after him. Similarly, the asteroid (13954) received its name.

- He was appointed Honorary Citizen of Göttingen and in 1954 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

- In 1959 he was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit and the Star of the Order of Merit by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Refer

1. Sergio Barbero (2018). Max Born, the man who made God play dice. Retrieved on November 15, 2019 from: researchgate.net
2. Vázquez AB (2015) I am convinced that Theoretical Physics is, really, philosophy (Max Born). Retrieved on November 16 from: rua.ua.es
3. Max Born (1954). The statistical interpretation of quantum machanics. Retrieved on November 16, 2019 from: nobelprize.org
4. Silvan Schweber (sf) Max Born; German physicist. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on November 15, 2019 from: britannica.com
5. Max Born (sf) Facts. Nobel Prizes and Laureates. Retrieved on November 27, 2019 from: nobelprize.org
6. Max Born (sf) Biography or his contributions to theoretical physics in general and to the development of quantum mechanics in particular. Retrieved on November 28, 2019 from: nobelprize.org.