Erwin Schrödinger, 1887-1961

Abstract

Erwin Schrödinger was born on 12 August 1887 in Vienna. His father was a Viennese and came from a very cultured family. The ancestors of his mother came from England which explains why Schrodinger spoke and wrote a practically flawless English. The relationship between father and son was excellent. To the growing boy the father was friend and teacher and he never tired of answering the inquisitive questions which the bright and interested boy produced in plenty. His elementary education was private and was carried out at home. At the age of 11 he entered the Akademische Gymnasium, a first-class grammar school which emphasized classical education, Latin and Greek. In spite of his main interest in mathematics and physics he loved the old languages as well as classical German and foreign poetry, and he was an addict of the famous Burgtheater in Vienna. He entered the University of Vienna in 1906. His great and beloved teacher there was F. Hasenohrl who had just succeeded to the chair of Boltzmann and who considered it his privilege and duty to continue the work of this great theoretical physicist. Hasenohrl was a very gifted physicist indeed and probably he would have been capable of great achievements had he not been killed in 1916 serving at the Italian front. He exercised a profound and lasting influence on the student Schrodinger. When much later Schrodinger received the Nobel Prize he said: ‘had Hasenohrl not been killed so young he would now be here in my place.’ Schrodinger himself served during the war as an artillery officer in Italy. From 1910 onwards his first publications began to appear. They were concerned with statistical problems, dielectrics, magnetism, and so on. Later on he also worked on X-ray diffraction in lattices, following the great discovery of von Laue in 1912.