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Chapter 9

'A LATE EROTIC OUTBURST'

'I do not even know what a matrix is', Heisenberg had lamented when told of the origins of the strange multiplication rule that lay at the heart of his new physics. It was a reaction widely shared among physicists when they were presented with his matrix mechanics. Within a matter of months, however, Erwin Schrödinger offered them an alternative that they eagerly embraced. His friend, the great German mathematician Hermann Weyl, later described Schrödinger's astonishing achievement as the product of 'a late erotic outburst'.1 A serial womaniser, the 38-year-old Austrian discovered wave mechanics while enjoying a secret tryst during Christmas 1925 at the Swiss ski resort of Arosa. Later, after fleeing Nazi Germany, he first scandalised Oxford and then Dublin when he set up home with his wife and yet another mistress under the same roof.

'His private life seemed strange to bourgeois people like ourselves', Born wrote some years after Schrödinger's death in 1961. 'But all this does not matter. He was a most lovable person, independent, amusing, temperamental, kind and generous, and he had a most perfect and efficient brain.'2

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was born in Vienna on 12August 1887. His mother wanted to name him Wolfgang, after Goethe, but allowed her husband to honour an older brother of his who had died in childhood. This brother was the reason why Schrödinger's father inherited the thriving family business manufacturing linoleum and oilcloth, ending his hopes of being a scientist after studying chemistry at Vienna University. Schrödinger knew that the comfortable and carefree life he enjoyed before the First World War was possible only because his father had sacrificed his personal desires on the altar of duty.

Even before he could read or write, Schrödinger kept a record of the day's activities by dictating it to a willing adult. Precocious, he was educated at home by private tutors until the age of eleven when he began attending the Akademisches Gymnasium. Almost from the very first day until he left eight years later, Schrödinger excelled at the school. He was always first in his class without appearing to make much of an effort. A classmate recalled that 'especially in physics and mathematics, Schrödinger had a gift for understanding that allowed him, without any homework, immediately and directly to comprehend all the material during the class hours and to apply it'.3 In truth, he was a dedicated student who worked hard in the privacy of his own study at home.

Schrödinger, like Einstein, had an intense dislike of rote learning and being forced to memorise useless facts. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the strict logic that underpinned the grammar of Greek and Latin. With a maternal grandmother who was English, he began learning the language early and spoke it almost as fluently as German. Later he learnt French and Spanish and was able to lecture in these languages whenever the occasion demanded. Well versed in literature and philosophy, he also loved the theatre, poetry and art. Schrödinger was just the sort of person to leave Werner Heisenberg feeling inadequate. Paul Dirac, when asked once if he played an instrument, replied that he did not know. He had never tried. Nor had Schrödinger, who shared his father's dislike of music.

After graduating from the Gymnasium in 1906, Schrödinger looked forward to studying physics at Vienna University under Ludwig Boltzmann. Tragically, the legendary theoretician committed suicide weeks before Schrödinger started his course. With his grey-blue eyes and shock of swept-back hair, Schrödinger made quite an impression despite being only 5ft 6in. Having shown himself to be an exceptional student at the Gymnasium, much was now expected from him. He did not disappoint, coming top of the class in one exam after another. Surprisingly, given his interest in theoretical physics, Schrödinger gained his doctorate in May 1910 with a dissertation entitled 'On the conduction of electricity on the surface of insulators in moist