Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [189]
March: Einstein publicly declares that he will not return to Germany. He resigns from the Prussian Academy of Sciences as soon as he arrives in Belgium and severs all links with official German institutions.
April: The Nazis introduce the 'Law for the Restoration of the Career Civil Service', designed to target political opponents, socialists, communists, and the Jews. Paragraph 3 contains the infamous 'Aryan clause': 'Civil servants not of Aryan origin are to retire.' By 1936 more than 1,600 scholars would be ousted, a third of them scientists, including twenty who had been or would be awarded the Nobel Prize.
May: 20,000 books are burned in Berlin, with similar bonfires of 'un-German' works throughout the country. Although unaffected by Nazi regulations, unlike Born and many other colleagues, Schrödinger leaves Germany for Oxford. Heisenberg stays. The Academic Assistance Council, with Rutherford as its president, is set up in England to help refugee scientists, artists and writers.
September: As fears over his safety increase, Einstein leaves Belgium for England. Paul Ehrenfest commits suicide.
October: Einstein arrives in Princeton, New Jersey for a scheduled visit. Intending to stay for only a few months at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Einstein never returns to Europe.
November: Heisenberg receives the deferred 1932 Nobel Prize, while Dirac and Schrödinger share the prize for 1933.
1935
May: The Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?', is published in the Physical Review.
October: Bohr's reply to EPR is published in the Physical Review.
1936
March: Schrödinger and Bohr meet in London. Bohr says that it's 'appalling' and 'high treason' that Schrödinger and Einstein want to strike a blow against quantum mechanics.
October: Born takes up a post as professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University after spending nearly three years at Cambridge and a few months in Bangalore, India. He stayed until his retirement in 1953.
1937
February: Bohr arrives in Princeton for a week-long stay as part of a world tour. Einstein and Bohr discuss the interpretation of quantum mechanics face-to-face for the first time since the publication of the EPR paper, but talk past each other as many things are left unsaid.
July: Heisenberg is branded a 'white Jew' in an SS journal for teaching 'Jewish' physics such as Einstein's theory of relativity.
October: Rutherford dies aged 66 in Cambridge after surgery for a strangulated hernia.
1939
January: Bohr arrives at the IAS as a visiting professor for the entire semester. Einstein avoids any discussions with Bohr, and during the next four months they meet only once at reception.
August: Einstein signs a letter to President Roosevelt raising the possibility of making an atomic bomb and the danger of the Germans constructing such a weapon.
September: The Second World War begins.
October: Schrödinger arrives in Dublin after stints at the universities of Graz and Ghent. He remained in Dublin as senior professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies until 1956 when he returned to Vienna.
1940
March: Einstein sends a second letter to President Roosevelt concerning the atomic bomb.
August: Pauli leaves war-torn Europe and joins Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He remained there until 1946 when he returned to Zurich and the ETH.
1941
October: Heisenberg visits Bohr in Copenhagen. Denmark had been occupied by German forces since April 1940.
1943
September: Bohr and his family escape to Sweden.
December: Bohr visits Princeton to have dinner with Einstein and Pauli before heading to Los Alamos in New Mexico to work on the atomic bomb. It was the first meeting between Einstein and Bohr since the Dane's visit in January 1939.
1945
May: Germany surrenders. Heisenberg is arrested by Allied forces.
August: Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima