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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 6: Physicists as Popularisators

GP 6.1: Talk

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 16:15–16:35, GP-H7

The role of aesthetics in science communication: History and histories in Werner Heisenberg's popular writings — •Elena Schaa — Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

In 1969, Werner Heisenberg published his memoir Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. Driven by the motivation to empower the lay audience to engage in the "philosophical, ethical, and political discussions" arising from modern physics, he sets out to share his recollections of the development of modern physics.

Departing from a close examination of Heisenberg's bestseller, the paper discusses how Heisenberg used history and historization to communicate physics beyond the scientific community while taking on a double role as a spectator and a narrator of the history of physics. The paper analysis first, the different ways history becomes relevant Heisenberg's narratives. Secondly, focusing on the form of his popular writings, the paper highlights the interference of science and religion, specifically the Romantic aesthetics of immediate experience of nature and knowledge production. Ultimately, I situate Heisenberg's communication of physics in the wider context of the German Bildungsbürgertum together with the masculine ideal of academic authority within which his popularisation of modern physics becomes effective.