Max Born's early scientific research involved a study of the dynamics of crystal lattices, a topic to which he returned from time to time throughout his life. The theories he developed eventually came to form the basis of modern solid-state physics. Born is perhaps better known for his role in establishing and clarifying a number of fundamental concepts in modern quantum theory. In the early 1920s, he collaborated with two of his students, German physicist Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan, in the development of matrix mechanics, one of the two fundamental mathematical systems for working with the new concepts of quantum theory. He later attacked the problem of finding a physical interpretation for the mathematical formulations that had been developed to describe the wave-particle character of matter. It was primarily for these contributions that Born shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in physics with German physicist Walther Bothe.

Born was...