|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Justin Schwartz
||
|| >Which doesn't mean that GoudSMIT exonerated W.H.
||
|| I didn't say that he did. I have read the report, incidentally.
|| I have said
|| nothing in defense of H's war work, just his physics.
||
|| >
|| >Heisenberg's post-war work was misguided, if not cranky.
||
|| Fortunately for H's reputation and the sate of quantum physicsm
|| that's not
|| all he left us. Frankly, Hakki, this is like going after Newton for his
|| alchemical research, it's sort of beside the point. Or ar you
|| stuck with the
|| notion that one somehow can't be a right winger and great scientist?
||
|| jks
||
Resistance is futile, Justin. H's reputation got what it had coming and it's going down. H's science thrived in the company of Bohr and Pauli, but his Nazi pals put an end to that in 1935, at which point H chose to serve fascism rather than science. He didn't go to jail for attempting to make a doomsday weapon for Hitler, he conned his way to a coveted chair instead. So it's way past time that his reputation got ratcheted down.
But quite aside from H's politics, deceitfulness, incompetence, etc., there's another question that I'd like to see addressed: Did H appropriate more than his share of the heady synergy of the early 30's? I'm just asking, not accusing. But it seems to me that predatory types like Hahn, who ripped off Lise Meitner's insights, or Watson and Crick who ripped off Rosalind Franklin's research, were prowling rather freely in those idealistic days when intellectual property was an alien concept. H looks like the perfect predator, wonder what he was up to?
Hakki