Schaa Elena
School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Ber Wiss. 2025 Aug;48(1-2):72-90. doi: 10.1002/bewi.202400017. Epub 2025 Jun 16.
In 1976, the year that Werner Heisenberg passed away, Armin Hermann published a short biography, titled Werner Heisenberg in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Since then, historians and biographers have offered their accounts on Heisenberg's life and his contributions to modern physics. Many of these biographies present Heisenberg as a genius. Upon closer inspection, the ideal of the genius relies on the topos of the experience of knowledge presented in Heisenberg's memoir from Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. This article discusses the influence of this topos on his biographies. The article first contextualizes Heisenberg's popular science texts among his academic career and the cultural contexts of the German Bildungsbürgertum. Second, it focuses on the aesthetic repertoire of knowledge production as the experience of knowledge. By going beyond the semantic level, it is shown that the topos of the experience of nature in Heisenberg's memoir is central to his scientific persona. Ultimately, the idea of the genius stands in a longue durée of German Romanticism and natural philosophy is shown to shape the masculinities and scientific personae of the modern physicist.
1976年，即维尔纳·海森堡去世的那一年，阿尔明·赫尔曼出版了一本简短的传记，名为《维尔纳·海森堡：自述与图像文献》。从那时起，历史学家和传记作者纷纷讲述海森堡的生平及其对现代物理学的贡献。这些传记中有许多将海森堡描绘成一位天才。仔细审视会发现，天才的形象依赖于海森堡在《部分与整体：与原子物理学界的对话》回忆录中呈现的知识体验主题。本文探讨了这一主题对他的传记的影响。文章首先将海森堡的科普著作置于他的学术生涯以及德国中产阶级文化背景之中。其次，它聚焦于作为知识体验的知识生产美学元素。通过超越语义层面，文章表明海森堡回忆录中自然体验的主题对他的科学形象至关重要。最终，天才的观念处于德国浪漫主义的漫长历史之中，并且自然哲学被证明塑造了现代物理学家的男性气质和科学形象。
