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Papers of Professor Max Born

 Fonds — Multiple Containers
Identifier: Coll-309

Content Description

3 items:

  1. Original manuscript in German of The restless universe, c 1930. [Dk.7.50]
  2. DVD (content not yet identified). [E.2006.32]
  3. Chinar wooden box presented to Born by students and admirers on 14 March 1936. [E.2007.09]

Dates

  • Creation: Majority of material found within c 1930-1936

Creator

Biographical / Historical

Max Born was born in Wroclaw, Poland (which was then Breslau, Germany), on 11 December 1882. He was educated at the Gymnasium and at the University in his home city, and he also studied at the Universities of Heidelberg, Zuerich, Goettingen (where he obtained the degree of D.Phil.), and Cambridge. Prior to his arrival in Britain in 1933 when he fled the growing danger of racial and political persecution in Nazi Germany, Born had been Professor at the Universities of Berlin, Frankfurt-am-Main, and Goettingen. At Cambridge he held the post of Stokes Lecturer of Applied Mathematics. In 1936, he was appointed to the Chair of Natural Philosophy with special reference to Mathematical Physics at Edinburgh University. In 1939 he became a British subject. His work on Relativity and on various aspects of Atomic Structure had already earned him international renown and while at Edinburgh he continued to extend the literature of his science. Born retired in 1953, and in 1954 he was the joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics. With Walther Bothe (1891-1957) of the University of Heidelberg, Born had been awarded the Prize for the statistical formulation of the behaviour of subatomic particles. His studies of the wave function led to the replacement of the original quantum theory (which regarded electrons as particles) with an essentially mathematical description representing their observed behaviour more accurately. His publications include The constitution of matter, modern atomic and electron theories (Eng. tr. 1923), Einstein's theory of relativity (Eng. tr. 1924), The restless universe (1935), The natural philosophy of cause and chance (1949), Physics in my generation: a selection of papers (1956), and Recollections of Max Born (1965). Professor Max Born died in Goettingen on 5 January 1970.

Full Extent

0.5 linear metre (1 wooden box (wrapped), 1 volume, 1 DVD)

Language of Materials

German

Related Materials

Heritage Collections at the University of Edinburgh hold letters from Born to Professor N. Kemp Smith from Bad Pyrmont, between 1951 and 1956, in the collection (Coll-1038, box Gen.1416) of Papers of Professor Norman Kemp Smith (1872-1958).

See also at Heritage Collections: Slides of Professor Max Born (Coll-1716).

Occupation

Topical

Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections Repository

Contact:
Centre for Research Collections
University of Edinburgh Main Library
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LJ Scotland
+44(0)131 650 8379