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A different point of departure led to the solution presented last week. Maxwellian theory took no notice of the size of energy-radiating particles, handled them as mathematical points. By 1925 subatomic theory had reached such a stage that electrons (which Maxwell did not know existed) had to be considered as waves as well as corpuscles—hence as abstractions. Reduced to its simplest terms, Professor Bern's latest work elevates them to the status of physical entities. By introducing a symbol to represent the electron's radius, by investing the electron with the four Einsteinian dimensions of time & space (which are handled symmetrically as four independent variables), Professor Born has made the old theory and the new lie down side by side in the same equation.
As a result, stated Professor Born, the positions and velocities of orbital electrons may now both be calculated. The Uncertainty Principle advanced six years ago by Professor Werner Heisenberg held that the position or velocity of a given electron might be observed, never both. It has been widely accepted by theorists ever since, was reiterated last June by Niels Bohr at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.*
Last week's announcement won instant acclaim. One acclaimer was Cambridge's Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac who, now only 31, three years ago startled his learned compatriots by declaring that nuclear protons were simply "holes" in the circumambient electronic field. "A major ad-ance!" cried Dr. Dirac.
Such great minds as Dr. Albert Einstein and Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington have long pondered the possibility of a Maxwell-quantum equation. Dr. Einstein could have used it as part of his Unified Field Theory coordinating the laws of electromagnetism, gravity and, light, which he succeeded in expressing mathematically, only to discard the expression when flaws were detected. At first blush Professor Born's feat of cerebral acrobatics seems to hold real promise of help to Dr. Einstein in rebuilding the Unified Field Theory, to which he expects to devote the rest of his life.
Born 50 years ago in Breslau, Max Born was the first son of Professor Gustav Born, University of Breslau anatomy professor famed for pioneer experiments in grafting tadpoles, and of Margarete Kauffmann Born, sprig of a solidly established family of industrial weavers. At Gottingen he drank the intoxicating elixir distilled by the distinguished mathematicians Hilbert, Klein & Minkowski, was only 22 when Einstein's Relativity turned the universe topsy-turvy. Four years later, a teacher of theoretical physics, he was plunging along the labyrinths opened up by the master (his mathematical treatises include an exposition of Einstein theory), but with many a nostalgic glance over his shoulder at Maxwell and classical mathematics. Now a gentle, grey-haired, square-jawed Jew with a shuffling walk and a husky voice, dislodged from Göttingen by the Nazi revolt, he lives quietly in Zurich, Switzerland with his wife and children, has turned down a professorship offered in Belgrade.