This page contains only a fraction of the available literature on the various aspects of Heisenberg's life and work. Further references are given in these works. The emphasis here is on English-language literature. These works are chosen for their broad appeal, but some are intended for advanced readers only. Works of most value for the general reader are indicated by *.
Additional Links
Who Was Werner Heisenberg: A page of links by his son.
Alsos Digital Library: Annotated references and links involving Heisenberg.
Bibliography
General Books and Articles
*Badash, Lawrence. Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons: From Fission to Limited Test Ban Treaty 1939-1963. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995.
Brown, Laurie and Helmut Rechenberg. The Origin of the Concept of Nuclear Forces. Philadelphia and Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1996.
Cassidy, D. "Controlling German Science." Two parts. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 24 (1994), 197-235; and 26 (1996), 197-239.
Cassidy, D. "Cosmic-Ray Showers, High Energy Physics, and Quantum Field Theories. Programmatic Interactions in the 1930s." Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 12 (1981), 1-39.
*Cassidy, D. Einstein and Our World. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995.
*Cassidy, D. "Heisenberg, Werner." Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics. John Rigden, ed. New York: Macmillan Reference, 1996.
*Cassidy, D. "Heisenberg, Werner Karl." Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Volume 17. F. L. Holmes et al., eds. New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1990. Pp. 394-403. book cover *Cassidy, D. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1992.
German: Werner Heisenberg: Leben und Werk. Andreas and Gisela Kleinert, trans. Heidelberg: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 1995.
Italian: Un'estrema solitudine: La vita e l'opera di Werner Heisenberg. Libero Sosio and Angela Iorio, trans. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1996.
*Eckert, Michael. Die Atomphysiker: Eine Geschichte der theoretischen Physik am Beispiel der Sommerfeldschen Schule. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1993.
*Heilbron, J.L. The Dilemnas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
*Heisenberg, Elisabeth. Das politische Leben eines Unpolitischen. Munich: Piper, 1983.
English: Inner Exile: Recollections of a Life with Werner Heisenberg. S. Cappellari and C. Morris, trans. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1984.
Heisenberg, W. Gesammelte Werke/Collected Works. 10 volumes. W. Blum et al., eds. Berlin: Springer-Verlag; and Munich: Piper-Verlag, 1985--. Mostly in German.
References to available translations in other languages may be found in D. Cassidy. Werner Heisenberg: A Bibliography of His Writings (Berkeley Papers in History of Science, IX). Berkeley, Ca.: Office for History of Science and Technology, 1984.
* Heisenberg, W. The Physicist's Conception of Nature. A.J. Pomerans, Trans. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970.
*Heisenberg, W. Der Teil und das Ganze. Munich: Piper, 1969.
English: Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. A.J. Pomerans, trans. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Hendry, John. The Creation of Quantum Mechanics and the Bohr-Pauli Dialogue. Hingham, Mass.: D. Reidel, 1984.
*Hermann, Armin. Die Jahrhundertwissenschaft: Werner Heisenberg und die Physik seiner Zeit. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1977.
Holton, Gerald. "The Roots of Complementarity." In Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1988. 99-145.
Jammer, Max. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Jammer, Max. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974.
Kleint, Christian and Gerald Wiemers, eds. Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig, 1927-1942. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993.
Laqueur, Walter Z. Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.
Moore, Walter. Schrödinger: Life and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Mosse, George L. The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich. New York: Schocken Books, 1964, 1981.
Pais, Abraham. Niels Bohr's Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991.
Pais, Abraham. 'Subtle is the Lord...' The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1982.
Pauli, Wolfgang. Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel mit Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, u.A. . Armin Hermann, Karl von Meyenn, Victor Weisskopf, eds. multivolume. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1979-.
*Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.
Schilpp, P.A., ed. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1949.
Walker, Mark. German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939-1949. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
*Walker, Mark. Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb. New York: Plenum Publishers, 1995.