马克斯·玻恩Max Born

马克斯·玻恩出生于一个犹太家庭。他的父亲Gustav Born是布雷斯劳大学一位杰出的胚胎学医学教授。玻恩的母亲玛格丽特·考夫曼来自布雷斯劳一个从事纺织业的家庭。玻恩从母亲那里继承了对音乐的热爱，但不幸的是，她在他四岁时去世了。古斯塔夫随后聘请了几位女家庭教师来照顾玻恩和他的妹妹，直到1890年他再次结婚。这个家庭为玻恩的成长提供了有教养的学术背景，但是，尽管玻恩的新母亲把家庭照顾得很好，玻恩和他的妹妹都没有与她建立起特别亲密的关系。

玻恩就读于布雷斯劳的约翰·萨穆埃尔·柯尼希威廉文理中学，学习了数学、物理、历史、现代语言、拉丁语、希腊语和德语等广泛科目。他在学校表现出的前途不大，尤其是他对人文学科的兴趣大于对科学的兴趣。1901年进入布雷斯劳大学后，他选修了广泛的科学科目，主要是为了顺从父亲的意愿（他的父亲在玻恩离开学校前不久去世了）。他在1901-02学年所修课程的清单确实令人印象深刻，包括数学、天文学、物理学、化学、逻辑学、哲学和动物学。

玻恩从他学过的科目中最喜欢数学和天文学，并考虑专攻天文学。当时德国的学生从一所大学转到另一所大学，玻恩也不例外，1902年在海德堡，1903年在苏黎世。在苏黎世，他参加了他的第一门高等数学课程，这是阿道夫·赫维兹关于椭圆函数的课程。

回到布雷斯劳后，他与同学奥托·特普利茨和恩斯特·黑林格交谈，他们向他介绍了哥廷根大学的伟大数学教师菲利克斯·克莱因、大卫·希尔伯特和赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基。玻恩很快来到哥廷根，参加大卫·希尔伯特和赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基的讲座。1905年，他成为大卫·希尔伯特的助手，继续参加菲利克斯·克莱因和卡尔·龙格关于弹性的讲座，以及大卫·希尔伯特和赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基关于电动力学的讨论班。也许他从这些著名教师那里获得的最大益处是在与大卫·希尔伯特和赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基在树林中散步时，除了数学之外，还讨论了各种引人入胜的话题，如哲学问题、政治问题和社会问题。然而，他因为只是不定期地参加菲利克斯·克莱因的讲座而惹恼了后者，所以玻恩决定用天文学代替几何学作为他的博士科目之一。他参加了卡尔·史瓦西的天文学讲座，并于1907年凭借一篇关于弹性稳定性的学位论文成功获得博士学位。

除了上面提到的数学家之外，玻恩在这一时期还与理查·科朗特、艾尔哈德·施密特和康斯坦丁·卡拉西奥多里有联系。获得博士学位后，玻恩服了义务兵役，但由于患有哮喘，他服役的时间远少于标准的一年。然而，这足以让他厌恶一切军事事物。此后，他访问了剑桥大学凯厄斯学院六个月，但他从约瑟夫·拉莫尔的讲座中收获较少，因为他难以听懂约瑟夫·拉莫尔的爱尔兰口音。

玻恩回到了布雷斯劳。大约在这个时候，玻恩读了阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦1905年关于相对论的论文，并立即被吸引。他将阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦和赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基的思想结合起来的工作使他在1909年受邀前往哥廷根，并开始与赫尔曼·闵可夫斯基合作，而后者在合作开始仅几周后就去世了[8]：-

玻恩讲述了他因感到希望破灭而多么沮丧，他如何再次与菲利克斯·克莱因发生冲突，但通过卡尔·龙格的斡旋，设法使大卫·希尔伯特相信他的想法是可靠的。

1912年，玻恩获得了哥廷根的一个职位，一旦进入教学人员队伍，他就开始与von 西奥多·冯·卡门进行一个研究项目。这项工作是关于晶格动力学的，他们用整个物体的简正振动模式来识别晶体的自由度。他们的工作使用了三维傅里叶分析和周期boundary conditions。玻恩于1913年与Hedwig Ehrenberg结婚，她是哥廷根一位法学教授的女儿。他们有一个儿子和两个女儿。

1914年，玻恩获得了柏林的一个讲席，在那里他成为了马克斯·普朗克的同事。当然，这与第一次世界大战的爆发同时发生，尽管玻恩已经对军队产生了厌恶，但他别无选择，只能为战争出力。他的第一个贡献是在德国空军担任无线电操作员，但很快他就参与了炮兵声测的研究。这使他离开了现役，他继续请求他以前在前线服役的同事和学生加入他，以便他们也能避免现役。战争年代对玻恩来说是异常艰难的，但与阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的友谊缓解了这一切。他们共同热爱音乐，会一起演奏小提琴奏鸣曲，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦拉小提琴，玻恩弹钢琴。

1919年4月，他搬到美因河畔法兰克福的一个讲席，同时成为那里的理论物理研究所所长。两年后，玻恩回到哥廷根担任物理研究所所长。1921年，也就是他成为哥廷根教授的那一年，他重新表述了热力学第一定律。从1926年开始，玻恩与沃尔夫冈·泡利和维尔纳·海森堡（玻恩的学生）合作研究量子力学（“量子力学”这个术语归功于玻恩）。他认识到维尔纳·海森堡对量子力学的方法就是矩阵代数。

玻恩从这次合作开始，在量子力学中产生了具有根本重要性的工作。他的处理取代了最初的量子理论，该理论将电子视为粒子，用更准确地表示其观测行为的数学描述取而代之。

然而，作为一名犹太人，玻恩在1933年被迫逃离德国，在意大利北部短暂停留后，他接受了成为剑桥乔治·加布里埃尔·斯托克斯讲师的邀请[3]：-

他后来非常热情地谈到他在[英国]受到接待和欢迎的方式。在接下来的几年里，他和妻子投入了大量精力，为来自德国和奥地利不得不移民的人提供帮助和建议。

在印度短暂停留后，他于1936年成为苏格兰爱丁堡大学的彼得·格思里·泰特应用数学教授。在那里，他引入了一个大陆风格的研究小组，主要由来自欧洲的难民组成。他的一位研究生描述了玻恩在爱丁堡的日子：-

玻恩早上到达时，他首先会巡视他的研究生，询问他们是否有任何进展要报告，并给他们建议，有时还会向他们出示他前一天亲自完成的关于他们问题的详尽计算。……上午剩下的时间，玻恩用来给本科荣誉学生讲课、处理系务以及做自己的研究工作。然而，后者的大部分他通常是在下午和晚上在家里进行的。

1953年退休后，玻恩回到德国，在哥廷根附近的巴特皮尔蒙特安家。不久之后，他获得了最大的荣誉，因对波函数的统计研究而被授予1954年诺贝尔奖。在此期间，他对科学哲学以及科学对人类事务的影响产生了兴趣[3]：-

他深切关注未来战争和大规模毁灭对世界的危险，并于1955年发起让一群诺贝尔奖得主签署一份关于这个问题的声明。

玻恩获得了许多荣誉，多得无法一一列举，仅举几例：他于1939年当选为皇家学会会士，并于1950年被授予该会的休斯奖章：-

……由于他对理论物理学的总体贡献，特别是对量子力学发展的贡献。

他获得了剑桥大学的乔治·加布里埃尔·斯托克斯奖章，两所德国学校以他的名字命名，他还被俄罗斯、印度、罗马尼亚、秘鲁、爱尔兰、苏格兰、丹麦、瑞典和美国的科学院聘为名誉院士。

玻恩写了许多教科书和专著，大多是为学生或该领域的专家写的，但有些是优秀的科普读物。他的出版物清单至少包括360项。

在3中，对玻恩有如下颂词：-

他因其对学科的许多重要贡献，以及作为教师的智慧和成功而受到尊重和尊敬。他因向普通人阐述物理学思想而广为人知，并因其热情和朴实直率的个性而受到许多同事和学生的爱戴。

Max Born was born into a Jewish family. His father, Gustav Born, was a distinguished medical professor of embryology at the University of Breslau. Max's mother, Margarete Kaufmann, came from a Breslau family who were in the textile industry. It was from his mother that Max inherited his love of music, but sadly she died when he was four years old. Gustav then appointed governesses to look after Max and his younger sister over the next four years until 1890 when he married again. The family provided a cultured and academic background for Max as he grew up but, although Max's new mother looked after the family well, neither Max nor his sister formed a particularly loving relationship with her.

Max attended the König Wilhelm Gymnasium in Breslau, studying a wide range of subjects such as mathematics, physics, history, modern languages, Latin, Greek, and German. He showed little promise at school and in particular he showed more interest in the humanities than in the sciences. Entering the University of Breslau in 1901 he took a wide range of science subjects, mainly to go along with his father's wishes (his father had died shortly before Max left school). The list of courses he took in session 1901-02 was certainly impressive, including mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy, and zoology.

Max's favourite subjects from the ones he studied were mathematics and astronomy and he thought of specialising in astronomy. Students in Germany at this time moved from university to university and Born was no exception spending 1902 in Heidelberg, then 1903 at Zürich. In Zürich he attended his first course on advanced mathematics, a course by Hurwitz on elliptic functions.

Back in Breslau he talked to his fellow students Toeplitz and Hellinger who told him of the great teachers of mathematics, Klein, Hilbert and Minkowski, at the University of Göttingen. Born was soon in Göttingen attending lectures by Hilbert and Minkowski. He became Hilbert's assistant in 1905, continuing to attend lectures by Klein and Runge on elasticity and a seminar by Hilbert and Minkowski on electrodynamics. Perhaps the most benefit he derived from his famous teachers was during walks he would make in the woods with Hilbert and Minkowski where all manner of fascinating subjects were discussed in addition to mathematics, such as problems of philosophy, problems of politics, and social problems. However he annoyed Klein by only making irregular attendances at his lectures, so Born decided to substitute astronomy for geometry as one of his doctoral subjects. He attended Schwarzschild's astronomy lectures and successfully obtained his doctorate in 1907 for a thesis on elastic stability.

In addition to the mathematicians mentioned above, Born was in contact with Courant, Schmidt and Carathéodory around this period. After the award of his doctorate, Born undertook compulsory military service, but because he suffered from asthma he served for much less than the standard period of one year. It was enough to make him loath all things military, however. After this he visited Caius College, Cambridge, for six months but made less of Larmor's lectures than he might because he had difficulty with Larmor's Irish accent.

Leaving Cambridge, Born returned to Breslau. Around this time Born read Einstein's 1905 papers on relativity and was immediately captivated. His work on combining ideas of Einstein and Minkowski led to an invitation to Göttingen in 1909 and he began a collaboration with Minkowski who died only weeks after the collaboration had begun [8]:-

Born relates how cast down he was by what he felt was the ruin of his hopes, how he again fell foul of Klein, but managed through the good offices of Runge to convince Hilbert of the soundness of his ideas.

In 1912 Born was offered a post in Göttingen and, once on the teaching staff, he began a research project with von Kármán. This work was on lattice dynamics where they identified the degrees of freedom of a crystal with the normal modes of vibration of the whole body. Their work uses three dimensional Fourier analysis and periodic boundary conditions. Born married Hedwig Ehrenberg, the daughter of a Professor of Law at Göttingen, in 1913. They had one son and two daughters.

In 1914 Born was offered a chair at Berlin where he became a colleague of Planck. Of course this coincided with the start of World War I and, although Born had already developed a loathing for the military, he had little choice but to contribute to the war effort. His first contribution was as a radio operator in the German air force, but soon he was involved in research in sound ranging in the artillery. This took him away from active duty, and he continued to request that his former colleagues and students who were serving on the front join him so that they likewise could avoid active duty. The war years were ones of exceptional difficulty for Born, eased by his friendship with Einstein. They shared a love of music and they would play violin sonatas together, Einstein on the violin and Born on piano.

In April 1919 he moved to a chair in Frankfurt-am-Main also becoming Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics there. Two years later Born was back in Göttingen as Director of the Physical Institute. In 1921, the year he became Professor at Göttingen, he reformulated the First Law of Thermodynamics. Beginning in 1926, Born collaborated with Pauli and Heisenberg, who was a student of Born's, on quantum mechanics (the term "quantum mechanics" is due to Born). He recognised Heisenberg's approach to quantum mechanics as being matrix algebra.

Born produced work of fundamental importance in quantum mechanics beginning with this collaboration. His treatment replaced the original quantum theory, which regarded electrons as particles, with a mathematical description representing their observed behaviour more accurately.

However, as a Jew, Born was forced to flee Germany in 1933 and, after a short while in the north of Italy, he accepted an offer to became Stokes lecturer at Cambridge [3]:-

He later spoke very warmly of the way in which he had been received and made welcome in [Britain]. For the next few years he and his wife devoted much effort to giving help and advice to others from Germany and Austria who had to emigrate.

After a short time in India, in 1936 he became Tait professor of applied mathematics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. There he introduced a continental style research group comprising mostly of refugees from Europe. One of his research students described Born's days in Edinburgh:-

When Born arrived in the morning he first used to make the round of his research students, asking them whether they had any progress to report, and giving them advice, sometimes presenting them with sheets of elaborate calculations concerning their problems which he had himself done the day before. ... The rest of the morning was spent by Born in delivering his lectures to undergraduate honours students, attending to departmental business, and doing research work of his own. Most of the latter, however he used to carry out at home in the afternoons and evenings.

After he retired in 1953 Born returned Germany making his home in Bad Pyrmont, near Göttingen. Soon after he received his greatest honour when he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for his statistical studies of wave functions. During this period he became interested in the philosophy of science as well as the impact of science on human affairs [3]:-

He was deeply concerned about the danger to the world from future war and mass destruction, and took the initiative in 1955 to get a statement on this subject signed by a gathering of Nobel Laureates.

Born received many honours, far too numerous to name more than a few: he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1939 and awarded its Hughes Medal in 1950:-

... for his contributions to theoretical physics an general and to the development of quantum mechanics in particular.

He received the Stokes Medal from the University of Cambridge, two German schools were named after him and he was made an honorary member of academies in Russia, India, Romania, Peru, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and the USA.

Born wrote many textbooks and monographs, mostly for students or experts in the subjects but some are excellent popular accounts of science. His publication list includes at least 360 items.

In [3] the following tribute is paid to Born:-

He was respected and honoured for many important contributions to his subject and for his wisdom and success as a teacher. He was widely known for his exposition of the ideas of physics to the layman, and he was held in affection by his many colleagues and pupils for the warmth and simple directness of his personality.