Martin Jähnert
Predoctoral Research Fellow
M.A.
Residence: October 1, 2011–September 30, 2013
Profile
Martin Jähnert studies the early debates on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, focusing on the notion of Anschaulichkeit and the interplay between the developing theory and attempts to interpret it on general epistemological grounds. From this perspective, the interpretational debate can be seen as a reflection on the role of pictures and models within the research process. The study attempts to clarify how physicists dealt with the methodological and epistemological challenges arising in the development of quantum mechanics as a theory and theoretical physics as a discipline.A second focus of Jähnert’s research is the role of the correspondence principle in the old quantum theory. By studying the multiple uses of the correspondence principle in different fields of research (e.g. intensities of spectral lines, dispersion etc.) it can be understood how the correspondence principle became fruitful in the development of quantum theory and how it eventually shaped matrix mechanics.
Talks and presentations
2008
Kopenhagener Deutung und dialektischer Materialismus – Annual meeting of the Germany Society for the History of Medicine, Sciences, and Technology (DGMNT), Hanover
2010
Pictures and Principles. Heuristics in the Early Interpretational Debate on Quantum Mechanics – Workshop of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, “Heuristics in Physics”, Bad Honnef
2011
From Continuity to Discontinuity: The Correspondence Principle and the Transformation of Mechanics – AIP-Washington: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Physical Sciences Since the Enlightenment: A Conference for Graduate Students and Early-Career Scholars
2011
Das Korrespondenzprinzip 1918-1925: Eine Transformation durch Anwendung – Technische Universität Berlin – Research Colloquium History of Science (Friedrich Steinle)
