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Abstraction in Modern Science


Werner Karl Heisenberg

Abstract This lecture was presented by Werner Karl Heisenbergr as the Nishina
Memorial Lecture at Asahi Lecture Hall (Tokyo) on April 26, 1967.

May I before I start my lecture express my deep gratitude for the invitation to this country, to those who have
made this invitation possible, for the greatest hospitality
which my wife and I enjoy in this beautiful country. And
also I would like to thank Professor Tomonaga for his very
kind words and to Dr. Yanase for all the labor he has taken
to translate this lecture.

Development of Natural Sciences and


Tendency toward Abstraction

Werner Karl Heisenberg


c
NMF

So the lecture will be on abstraction in modern science. When the present state of
natural sciences is compared with that of an earlier period, it is often asserted that
the sciences have become more and more abstract in the course of their development
and that they have reached at present in many areas a downright strange character
of abstractness, which is only partially compensated as a huge practical success
which the physical sciences have exhibited in their technological applications. I do
not wish to enter here into the value question, which is often raised at this point.
We shall not discuss, therefore, whether the physical sciences of an earlier period
Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 1976). Nobel Laureate in Physics (1932)
W. K. Heisenberg: Abstraction in Modern Science, Lect. Notes Phys. 746, 115 (2008)
c Nishina Memorial Foundation 2008

DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-77056-5 1

Werner Karl Heisenberg

were more gratifying in the sense that they through their devoted thoroughness to
the details of the natural phenomena had given a living picture of the relationships
which we find in nature, or whether on the contrary the enormous expansion of the
technical possibilities which is based upon modern research has irrefutably proven
the superiority of our present conception of the natural sciences. This question of
value will for now be completely bypassed. Instead, the attempt will be made to
examine more closely the process of abstraction in the development of sciences.
We shall examine insofar as this is possible in such a short lecture what really
happens when the sciences obviously following and in a necessity rise from one
level of abstraction to the next higher one for the sake of what goals of knowledge
does this laborious ascent generally proceed? In so doing, it will become apparent that very similar processes are going through in the dierent branches of the
scientific field, which through their very comparison become more comprehensible. When, for instance, a biologist traces specks of metabolism and propagation of
living organisms to chemical reactions; when the chemist replaces the detailed description of the properties of a substance with a more or less complicated chemical
formula; finally, when the physicist expresses the laws of physical nature in mathematical equations, there is always eected here a development whose basic type is
perhaps most clearly recognizable in the development of mathematics, and whose
necessity must be investigated.

Case of Mathematics
We can begin with the question what is abstraction and what role does it play in
conceptional thinking. The answer could be formulated perhaps so. Abstraction denotes the possibility of considering one object or a group of objects from just one
viewpoint while disregarding all other properties of the object. The isolating of one
characteristic, which in a particular relationship is looked upon as especially important in contrast to all other properties, that constitutes an essence of abstraction.
As it is easily comprehended, all concept formation is based upon this process of
abstraction. For the formation of a concept piece of process that one can recognize
similarity, homogeneity. But since total equality practically never occurs in the phenomenal world, the homogeneity arises out of similarity only through the process of
abstraction, so the isolating of one characteristic while omitting all others. In order
to form, let us say, the concept tree, one must perceive that there are certain common characteristic about birch trees and fir trees, which one through abstraction can
isolate and thereby grasp.
The filtering out of common features can under circumstances be an act of knowledge of a greater significance. It must have been recognized very early in the history
of mankind that there is for example inter-comparison of let us say three cows and
three apples, the common feature, which is expressed by the word three. The formation of the concept of number is already a decisive step from the sphere of the
immediately given sensible word into the framework of rationally graspable thought

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structures. The sentence that two nuts and two nuts yield together four nuts remains
also correct when one replaces the word nut with bread or with reference to any
other object. We could therefore generalize this and close it in the abstract form two
and two make four. That was the most important discovery.
The peculiar ordering power of this concept of number was probably recognized
already very early and contributed to the fact that the individual numbers then were
taken or interpreted to be important symbols. From the standpoint of present day
mathematics, the individual number is however less important to be sure than the
basic operation of counting. It is the latter operation, which enables the procession, depositing of the series of natural numbers and produces implicitly with it
all the eects, which are studied for instance in the mathematical theory of numbers. With counting, a decisive step is obviously taken in abstraction through which
the entrance way opened into mathematics and into the mathematically formulated
physical sciences.
At this point we can now already study one phenomenon with which we shall
meet time and again in the various levels of abstraction in mathematics or in the
modern sciences and which for the development of abstract thinking and science can
be referred to almost as a kind of fundamental phenomenon. This is a term used by
the German poet and scientist Goethe, although Goethe would not have used this expression, Urphanomen or fundamental phenomenon, in this special connection. One
can define it perhaps as the unfolding of the abstract structures. The notions, which
are first formed through abstraction from individual eects or from manifold experiences, gain their own independent existence. They show themselves to be much
richer and much more fruitful than they look when they were first considered. They
manifested their lethal development and independent power of ordering insofar as
they give rise to the formation of new forms and notions, negate the comprehension
of the relation to one another, and somehow they prove themselves successful in
their attempt to understand the world of phenomena.
From the notion of counting and its related simple arithmetic operations was
developed later for example, partly in ancient and partly in modern times, a complicated arithmetic and theory of numbers, which really only uncovered that, which
was presented from the very beginning in the number concept. Further number and
the theory of number relations, which developed from it, oered the possibility of
comparing lines by measuring. From here, a scientific geometry could be developed,
which already extends conceptually beyond number theory. In the attempt to establish geometry or number theory this way, the Pythagoreans, early Greek philosophers, ran up against the diculties of the irrational ratios between the lengths of
lines and they were forced to enlarge their class of numbers. They had to invent
so to speak the notion of irrational number. Preceding a step further from here, the
Greek mathematicians arrived at the notion of the continuum and the well known
paradoxes, which Xeno, the philosopher studied. But on this point, we shall not enter into these diculties in the development of mathematics but only point out the
abundance of forms, which implicitly already contained the notion of number and
which can be as I said unfolded from it.

Werner Karl Heisenberg

The following then can be said to resolve the process of abstraction. The notion,
which has formed the process gains its own existence and enables an unexpected
abundance of forms or all the structures to be derived from it, which forms can later
prove their value in some way or other in understanding the phenomena surrounding
us.

Mathematical Truth is Valid on Other Planets


It is well known from this basic phenomenon that heated discussion arose as to
what the object of mathematics really is. The mathematics is concerned with genuine knowledge that can hardly be doubted, but knowledge of what? In mathematics,
are we describing something objectively real, which exists in some sense independently for us or is mathematics only a capacity of human thinking? Are the laws,
which we derive in mathematics only statements concerning the structure of human
thinking? I do not really wish here to unravel this dicult problematic but only to
make one remark, which underlines the objective character of mathematics. It is not
improbable that there is there also something similar to life on other planets. Let
us say in Mars but in any case in other solar systems probably. And the possibility
must be reckoned with throughout that there are on some other heavenly body living
beings in whom the ability for abstract thinking is so far developed that they have
found the concept of number. If this is so and if these living beings have followed up
their concept of number with a scientific mathematics, they would arrive at exactly
the same statements on number theory as we human beings have. Arithmetic and
number theory could not appear basically any dierent to them as it does to us and
their results would have to agree with ours. If mathematics is to hold true statements
about human thinking, then it would hold true in any case not only for human thinking but for thinking as such. No matter how many types thinking beings there are,
mathematics must be the same in all cases. This statement could be compared with
other scientific statements. No doubt exactly the same laws of nature hold true on
other planets or on other heavenly bodies lying still much farther distance as we find
here on the earth. This is now not only a theoretical supposition, rather we can look
through our telescopes and observe that there are the same chemical elements on
the stars as here on the earth and that they enter into the same chemical compounds
and emit light from the same spectral bands. But whether this scientific statement,
which is based on observation, has anything to do with the statements made earlier
about mathematics and further what it has to do with it shall not be investigated at
this point.
Let us for a moment turn back to mathematics before we look at the development of the physical sciences. In the course of its history, mathematics has again
and again formed new and more comprehensive notions and has thus risen to continually higher levels of abstraction. The class of numbers was extended through to
the irrational numbers and to the complex numbers. The concept of function gave
access to the realms of higher analysis and dierential and integral calculus. The no-

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tion of group proved itself equally applicable in algebra, geometry, in the theory of
functions, and suggested the idea that it should be possible on the higher level of abstraction and to comprehend entire mathematics with its many dierent disciplines
and the one unifying point of view.
Group theory was developed as such an abstract foundation of entire mathematics. The diculties encountered in group theory finally necessitated the step from
mathematics to mathematical logic, which was aected in 20s, especially by David
Hilbert and his associates in Gottingen. Each time, the step from one level of abstraction to the next higher one had to be taken because problems could not be solved
and not really be understood in the narrow sphere in which they first were posed.
The connection with other problems in wider fields first provided the possibility
for new mode of understanding and provided the inducement for concept formation or further more comprehensive concepts. For instance when it was realized that
the action of parallels in Euclidean geometry could not be demonstrated, the nonEuclidean geometry was developed but the true understanding was first reached
when much more general question was posed within a particular action system,
can it be proven that there are no inherent contradictions involved? When the question was so posed, then the core of the problem had been reached. At the end of
this development, mathematics exist at present in such a form that its foundation
can only be discussed in exceptionally abstract terms whose relation to anything in
our experience seems to have totally disappeared. The following statement is said
to have been expressed by the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Mathematics is concerned with objects about which nothing is known as to what
they are and it consists of statements about which it is not known whether they are
true or false. As a commenter into the second part of this statement, it is known
namely only that they are formally correct but not whether they are object in reality to which they can be related. But the history of mathematics should serve you
only as an example in which the necessity and the development to abstraction and
to unification can be recognized.

In Physical Sciences? - Development of Biology


The question shall now be raised whether something similar took place in the physical sciences. In so doing I wish to begin with a science, which according to object
is closest to life and therefore perhaps least abstract, namely biology. In its former
classification into zoology and botany, it was to a large extent a description of many
forms of life, which we meet here on our earth. The science compared these forms
with an aim of bringing some sort of order into that first almost incalculable multiplicity of living phenomena and seeking further consistency of natural law in the
field of living beings. In so doing the question arose of itself according to what aspects could the various living beings be compared? What, therefore, lets say, were
the common characteristics, which could serve as a basis of comparison? Already
the investigations of the German poet and scientist, Goethe, into the metamorphosis

Werner Karl Heisenberg

of plants were for example already directed towards such a goal. At this point, the
first step towards abstraction had to follow. Individual living beings were no longer
primarily investigated but rather the biological functions as such, such as growth,
metabolism, propagation, breathing, circulation, and so on, which characterized life.
These functions provided the points of view according to which very dierent living
beings could be well compared. They prove themselves like the mathematical concepts of which I spoke as unexpectedly fruitful. They developed to a certain extent
their own power of ordering very broad areas of biology. Thus they arose out of the
study of the processes of heredity, the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, which for
the first time promised to explain the abundance of various forms of organic life on
earth within one extensive unified viewpoint.
The research into breathing and metabolism on the other hand led o itself to the
question of the chemical processes in living organisms. It gave rise to the comparison of these processes with the chemical processes, which takes place in the laboratory and with this the bridge was laid between biology and chemistry. At the same
time, the question was raised whether the chemical process in living organism and
those in inanimate meta proceed according to the same natural laws. Thus by itself
the question shifted from the biological functions to the further question as to how
these biological functions where materialized in nature. As long as the sites were
kept on the biological functions themselves, the point of view still fits entirely into
the intellectual world of say the poet Goethe and his friend and philosopher Carlos
who referred to the close connection between the biological functions of organs and
to unconscious cyclical processes. But with the question of material actualization
of the functions, the sphere of biology in its proper sense was forced out for it now
became evident that one could only then really understand the biological processes
when one also had scientifically analyzed and explained the corresponding chemical
and physical processes.
On this next level of abstraction then, all biological relationships are at first disregarded and the only question is what physical and chemical processes as correlates to biological process actually take place in the organism. Proceeding along
this line, we have arrived at present at the knowledge of very general relationships,
which appear to define all living processes on earth as an essential unity and which
can be most easily expressed in terms of atomic physics. As a special example,
we can name the hereditary factors whose continuity from organism to organism is
regulated by the well known Mendel laws. These hereditary factors are apparently
given materially through the arrangement of a larger quantity of four characteristic
molecule fragments in the two chains of chain molecule, which is called deoxyribonucleic acid and which plays a decisive role in the foundation of cell nucleus. The
extension of biology into chemistry and atomic physics allows therefore the unified
interpretation of basic biological phenomena for the entire realm of living objects
on earth. Whether existing life on say other planets would be based on the same
atomic and chemical structures cannot be decided at the moment but it is possible
that we will know the answer to this question in a not too distant future.

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In the Domain of Chemistry


A development similar to that in biology then took place in chemistry and I wish
to select from the history of chemistry only one episode, which is characteristic of
the phenomenon abstraction and unification, namely, the development of concept
of valency. Chemistry has to do with the properties of substances and investigates a
question how substances with certain given properties can be transformed into those
with other properties. How substances can be combined, separated, altered? When
one began to quantitatively analyze the compounds of substances and to ask how
much of the dierent chemical elements is present in the compound in question,
then integer number ratios were discovered.
Now the atomic representation had already been previously employed as a suitable illustration by which the compound of elements could be considered. In so
doing, one proceeded always from the following known comparison or picture. If
one mixes, let us say white sand and red sand, the resulting sand whose red color is
lighter or darker depending on the ratio of the mixture. The chemical compound of
two elements was also thus envisaged. Instead of the grains of the sand, one thought
of atoms. Since the chemical compound is more varied in its properties from the
elements of which it is formed that the sand mixture from both types of sand, the
picture had to be improved. Assuming that the dierent atoms first arrange themselves together into atomic groups, which then as molecules applied basic units of
the compound. The integer number ratios of the basic matter could then be interpreted and could be the reason for the rational ratios of the number of atoms in the
molecule. The experiments of various kinds supported such intuitive interpretation
and allowed more of a further assigning of the so-called valence number to the individual atom, which symbolizes the possibility of combining it with other atoms.
In so doing, it remained that at any rate, and this is point with which we are concerned here, completely unclear at first whether one should visualize the valency
as a directional force or as a geometric quality of the atom or as something else.
Whether the atoms are themselves real material structure or only helpful geometrical pictures suitable for the mathematical representation of their chemical event?
That had to remain undecided for a rather long time. A mathematical representation
is here understood that assembles in the rules for combination. Therefore here for
example, the valency and rules for valency are isomorphic with the phenomena in
the same sense in which, let us say, if it were expressed in the mathematical language of group theory, the linear transformations of a vector are isomorphic to the
rotation in three-dimensional space.
Returning now to practical problems and omitting the language of mathematics,
this means the following. One can use the valence representation in order to predict, which chemical compounds are possible between the elements in question but
whether the valency is more of something real in the same sense in which say a force
or geometrical form can be said to be real, this question could remain unanswered
for a long time. Its decision was for chemistry not especially important. While the
attention was focused on the complicated process of the chemical reaction and especially on the quantitative mixture ratio and all other aspect were disregarded, thats

Werner Karl Heisenberg

to say through the process of abstraction, the notion was gained, which allowed for
the unified interpretation and partial comprehension of the various chemical reactions.
It was only much later in modern atomic physics, namely that it was first learned
what type of reality stands behind the valency concept. Indeed we cannot even now
correctly say whether valency is really a force or an electronic orbit or a change
in the electric charge density of an atom or only the possibility of something of
such kind. But todays physics that means after Bohrs theory of atom and after
quantum mechanics, this uncertainty is no longer related to the thing itself but only
to its formulation in language whose imperfection we cannot basically improve or
remove.
It is only a short way from the valency concept to the formal abstract language
of todays chemistry, which enables a chemist to understand the contents and results
of his work in all areas of his science.

History of Physics
The stream of information, which the observing biologist or chemist gather, flows
therefore through the gradient of questions aiming at unified comprehension and
thereby leading to abstract contents finally of itself into the broad field of atomic
physics. It appears accordingly as though atomic physics with central procession
must already be comprehensive enough in order to supply the basic structure for all
natural phenomena, a structure to which all phenomena can be related and according to which all phenomena can be ordered. But even in the case of physics, which
appears here as a common basis for biology and chemistry, this is in no way self
evident since there are so many dierent physical phenomena whose interrelationship is at first unrecognizable. Therefore the development of physics is also still to
be dealt with and we want indeed to cast the glance first at its earliest beginnings.
At the beginning of the ancient Greek science, there existed as its well known,
the theory of Pythagoreans that as we know from Aristotle things are numbers. Now
if one tries to interpret in a modern sense the description of this Pythagorean theory
according to Aristotle, the meaning is probably the following that the phenomena
can be so ordered and understood as they are related through mathematical forms
and only so they can be ordered.
But this relationship is not thought of as an arbitrary act of our known faculty of
our mind but rather as something objective. It is said for instance that the numbers
are the substantial essence of things or the entire heavens is harmony and number. But this at first probably meant simply the order of the world. For the ancient
philosophers, the world was a cosmos with ordered thing and not chaos. The understanding thus gained appears not yet all too abstract. For instance, the astronomical
observations are interpreted according to the notion of orbit. The stars move in circles, the circle is the course of its high degree of symmetry and especially perfect
figure, so orbital motion is therefore evident as such. For the more complicated mo-

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tion of planets, however, several orbital motions, cycles, and epicycles had to be
combined in order to represent the observations correctly, but this was complete
enough for then attainable degree of exactitude. The sun and the moons eclipse
could be a rather well predicted using Ptolemy astronomy.
The modern period beginning with Newtons physics opposed now this classical
concept with a question, has not the motion of the moon about the earth something
in common with the motion of a falling stone or with a motion of the stone that
is thrown. The discovery that there is something common present here upon which
one can concentrate while disregarding all other multiplying dierences belongs to
the most momentous events in the history of natural sciences. The common element
was uncovered through the formation of the concept of force, which caused the variations in the quantity of motion of a body. Here especially that of gravity. Although
this concept of falls originates from sensible experience, lets say from the sensation
of lifting a heavy weight, yet the notion is already defined abstractly in Newtons axioms, mainly through the variation of the quantity of motion and without reference
to the sensation. With the few simple notions like mass, velocity, quantity of motion,
or as we now say momentum and force, a close system of axioms was formulated
by Newton, which while disregarding all other properties of the bodies, was now
sucient to handle all the mechanical processes of motion.
As it is well known, this axiomatic system, similar to the concept of number in
the history of mathematics, proved itself exceptionally fruitful during the following period. For over 200 years mathematicians and physicist have derived new and
interesting conclusions from Newtonian starting point, which we learnt in school
in the simple form mass times acceleration is equal to force. The theory of planetary motion was begun by Newton himself and developed and refined by the later
astronomy. The motion of the spinning top was studied and explained. Fluid mechanics, elastic bodies were developed. The analogy between mechanics and optics
was worked out mathematically.
All the time two aspects had to be especially emphasized in this process. First,
when one asks only about the pragmatic side of science, lets say when one compares Newtonian mechanics and its performance of astronomical predictions with
that of classical astronomy, then what Newtonian physics in its beginnings in this
case hardly be distinguished from classical astronomy. Basically the motion of the
planets could be represented as exactly as is desirable through a superimposition
of cycles and epicycles. The convincing power of Newtonian physics then did not
primarily originate from its practical applicability, but it is rather based on its ability
of synthesizing, its unifying explanation of very dierent phenomena on the power
of systematizing, which proceeds from Newtonian starting point.
From this basis new fields of mechanics, astronomy physics, were opened up
in the following centuries, if there still was a need for significant scientific accomplishments of series of researchers; however, the result already rests even if it was
not first recognizable on Newton starting point, exactly as a concept of number already contains implicitly the entire number theory. Also if beings are dealt with
reason, other planets were to make the Newtonian basis the starting point for their
own scientific considerations, they could obtain only the same answer to the same

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questions. In this respect the development of the Newtonian physics is an excellent


example for that unfolding of abstract concepts, which had been discussed already
at the beginning of this talk.
First in the 19th century it appeared then nevertheless that the Newtonian starting
point was not rich enough to produce the corresponding mathematical formulation
of all observable phenomena. The electrical phenomena for example, which especially since the discoveries of Galvani, Volta, and Faraday held the main center of
interest for the physicists, did not fit correctly into the picture of the concept of
mechanics. Faraday therefore leaning on the theory of elastic bodies invented the
notion of field of force whose time changes were investigated and explained independent of the motion of the bodies. From such a starting point, the Maxwell theory
of electromagnetic phenomena later developed out of which came Einsteins theory
of relativity and finally his general field theory, which Einstein hoped could be developed into the foundation for the entire field of physics. We shall not enter into
the details of this development. What is important here for our concentration is only
the fact that even at the beginning of the present century, physics was, as a consequence of such development, still in no way uniform. The material bodies whose
motion was studied in mechanics were acted upon by something distinctly dierent,
namely the forces, which caused their motion and which as fields of force represented their own reality according to their own laws of nature. The dierent fields
of force stood unrelated next to one another. To the electromagnetic forces and to
those of gravity, which had already been known for a long time and to the chemical
valency forces were added in recent decades the forces in the atomic nucleus and in
the actions responsible for radioactive decay.
As a result of this various coexisting intuitive descriptions and separate types
of force, a question was posed, which science could not avoid. I did convince the
nature ultimately is uniformly ordered, that all phenomena proceed finally from the
same uniform laws of nature. Therefore it must be possible in the end to uncover the
underlying structure common to all the dierent areas of physics.

Unification by the Concept of Potential Reality


Modern atomic physics has approached this goal through the means of abstraction
and through the formation of more comprehensive concepts. The seemingly contradictory description by waves and particles, which arose in the interpretation of
atomic research, led first to the formation of the concept of possibility of a near potential reality as a nucleus of the theoretical interpretation. With this the antithesis
was dissolved between the material particles of Newtonian physics on the one hand
and the field of the force of Faraday-Maxwell physics. Both are possible forms of
appearance of the same physical reality. The contrast between force and matter has
lost its prime significance, although the very abstract notion of a mere potential reality proved itself as exceptionally fruitful. So the atomic interpretation of biological
and chemical phenomena first became possible. But the search after connections

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between the various types of field of forces arose in recent decades simply out of
new experiment. To each type of field of force, there corresponds, in the sense of
the aforementioned potential reality, a definite type of elementary particle. So light
quantum or photon corresponds to the electromagnetic field, the electrons correspond to certain extent to valency force in chemistry. The mesons correspond to the
nuclear force that has been first pointed out by Yukawa.
In recent experiments with elementary particle, it became apparent that new such
particles may be created in collision of very high speed elementary particles and
it seems indeed that if there is availability of sucient impact energy for the formation of the new particles, then elementary particles of every desired type can be
generated. The dierent elementary particles are therefore so to say all made out
of the same substance, and we call these substances as simply energy or matter,
they can all be converted into one another. With this the fields of force can also be
transformed into each other. The inner relationship is directly recognizable through
experimentation. There stills remains for the physicist, a task of formulating the
natural laws according to which the transformation of elementary particles takes
place. These laws should represent or describe in a precise and therefore necessarily
abstract mathematical language what can be seen in the experiments.
The completion of this task should not be too dicult considering the growing
amount of information, which experimental physics working with the greatest technical means furnishes us. Next to the concept of a potential reality related to space
and time, the requirement of relativistic causality, namely that eect cannot be transmitted more quickly than the speed of light, this seems to play a special role. For the
mathematical formulation, there is a left over finally a group theoretical structure, a
totality of symmetry requirements, which can be represented through rather simple
mathematical statements. Whether this structure is finally sucient for the complete
representation of experiment can again first become apparent through the process of
unfolding, which has been repeatedly spoken o, but the details are not important
for the considerations here. One can say the relation of the various fields of physics
seems to be already explored through the experiments during the recent decades.
Therefore we believe that the uniform physical structure of nature is already now
recognizable in its contours.
At this point the limits of arriving at an understanding of nature found in the very
essence of abstraction itself must be referred to. If at first many important details
are disregarded in favor of the one characteristic by which the ordering succeeds,
then one limits oneself necessarily to the working out of a structure only a type of
skeleton, which could first become a true representation through the addition of a
great number of further details. The relationship between the phenomena and the
basic structure is in general so intricate that it can hardly be followed everywhere
in the details. Only in physics has the relation between the concepts with which
we directly describe the phenomena and those which occur as the formulation of
the natural laws really been worked out. In chemistry, this has only succeeded to a
considerably more limited extent and biology is first beginning in a few places to
understand how the notions, which originate from our immediate knowledge of life
and which retain unrestrictedly their values can fit together with that basic struc-

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ture. Still in spite of this, the understanding gained through abstraction mediates
to a certain extent a natural coordinate system through which the phenomena can
be related and according to which they can be ordered. The understanding of the
universe gained in this manner is related to the basically hoped for and continually
striven after knowledge like say the recognizable plan of a landscape scene from
a very high flying airplane is to the picture which one can gain by wandering and
living in such a landscape.

Dont be Afraid of the Limitlessness


Let us now return to the question, which I posted at the beginning. The tendency
towards abstraction in the science rests therefore ultimately on the necessity of continually questioning after uniform understanding. The German poet and scientist
Goethe deplores this once in relation to his notion of Urphanomen primary phenomenon, which he invented. He writes in his theory of color when that fundamental
phenomenon is found still the problem would remain that it would not be recognized
as such. That we would search for something further over and beyond it when we
should here confess the limits of immediate experience. Goethe felt clearly that to
step to abstraction could not be avoided if one continues to question. What he means
to say with the words is beyond it that is precisely the next higher level of abstraction. Goethe wants to avoid it. We should acknowledge limits of experience and not
try to pass beyond them because beyond these limits, immediate experience is impossible and the realm of constructive thinking detached from sensible experience
begins. This realm remained almost strange and sinister for Goethe, most of all because the limitlessness of this realm probably frightened him. Only thinkers of an
entirely dierent mentality than Goethe could be attracted to the limitless expanse,
which is here conspicuous. It was for instance a German philosopher Nietzsche who
stated that abstract is many a hardship, for me on a good day a feast and an ecstasy.
But human being so reflective upon nature, do question further because they grasp
the world as unity and they want to comprehend its uniform structure. They formed
for this purpose, more and more comprehensive notions whose relationship with
direct sensible experience is only dicult to recognize but the existence of such a
relationship is the unconditional piece of precision that abstraction mediates at all
the understanding of the world.

In Fine Arts and Religion


After one has been able to survey this process in the area of todays natural sciences
over such a wide extent, one can add the conclusion of such a consideration only
with diculty-resisted temptation of casting a view on other areas of human thought

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and life on art and religion and asking whether similar processes have taken place
or still take place there.
In field of fine arts for instance, a certain similarity is conspicuous between that
which occurs in the case of the development of an art style from simple basic forms
and that which was here named as unfolding of abstract structures. As in the sciences, one has the impression that with the basic forms, for example in Romanic
architecture, the architecture of early medieval times in Europe, the semicircle and
the square, the possibilities for shaping them into assuming for the richer forms
of later period, they are already extensively co-determined. We see that the development of the style is concerned therefore more with unfolding than with newly
creating. A very important common characteristic consist also in the fact that we
cannot invent such basic forms but only discover them. The basic forms possess a
genuine objectivity. In the physical sciences, they must represent reality. In art one
has to express the spirit of life in the period in question. One can discover under
favorable circumstances that there are forms which can perform this task but one
cannot simply construct them.
More dicult to judge is the occasionally expressed opinion that the abstractness
of modern art has causes similar to those of the abstractness of modern science, that
is somehow related to the latter contents. If the comparison on this point should
be justified, it means that modern art has gained the possibility of representing and
making visible further comprehensive relationships not expressible by earlier periods of art by renouncing the direct connection with sensible experience. Modern
art, this would then be the statement, can reproduce the unity of the world better
than classical arts. But whether this interpretation is correct or not, I am not able
to decide. Often the development of modern art is also dierently interpreted. The
disintegration of old orders, for example of religious bonds, is reflected in our time
but is dissolving of the traditional forms and art of which then only a few abstract
elements remain. If the latter is the correct interpretation, then there exists no relationship with abstractness of modern science. For in the case of abstractness of
science, actually new understanding is gained into more far reaching relationships.
Perhaps here it is permissible to mention one more comparison from the field of
history that abstractness arises out of the continuous questioning and out of striving
for unity that can be clearly recognized from one of the most significant events in the
history of the Christian religion. The notion of god in the Jewish religion represents
the higher level of abstraction compared to the concept of the many dierent cases
of nature whose operation in the world can be directly experienced. Only on this
higher level of abstraction is the unity of divine activity recognizable. The struggle
of the representatives of the Jewish religion against Christ was, if we may here
follow Martin Buber, a struggle centered around the maintaining of the purity of
abstraction around the assertion of the higher level already once gained. Contrary to
this, Christ had to insist upon the requirement that abstraction may not detach itself
from life. The human being must directly experience the activity of the god in the
world even when there is no more intelligible representation of the god.
The use of comparison that the main diculty of all abstraction is here as characterized that is only too familiar to us also in the history of sciences. Every natural

14

Werner Karl Heisenberg

science would be worthless whose assertions could not be observationally verified


in nature and every art would be worthless, which was no longer able to move to
aect human being, no longer able to enlighten for them the meaning of existence.
But it would not be reasonable at this point to allow our view to go too far distance,
where we have only concerned ourselves towards making more understandable the
development of abstraction in modern science. We have to limit ourselves then here
to the statement that modern science integrates itself in a natural way into a very
wide system of understandable connections, a system which arises with eect that
man is continuously questioning and that this continual questioning is a form in
which man responds to the world surrounding him in order to recognize its intrinsic
relationships and to enable himself to live there.

Fig. 1.1 Professor and Mrs. Heisenberg on their visit to the Nishina Memorial Foundation (1967)

1 Abstraction in Modern Science

Fig. 1.2 Professor Heisenberg (center) and Professor Yanase (interpreter, left) on the stage

Fig. 1.3 An unusual long queue formed in front of Asahi Lecture Hall

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