Talk:Pascual Jordan

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For a larger entry... Being Jordan a German, someone should try to translate some of the text of the German entry. As I know, although having been in the Nazi party, Jordan (who was of Spanish ascendance) worshipped the work of Jewish scientists during the 30s. Later he got to be politician in the democratic Germany and built one of the most important blocks of German scientists of the after-war era.

N.M.B.R.Nbez 15:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

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I have embarked on an overhaul of this article. Many particulars that I have added can be found in the article by Bert Schroer. I do not have a copy of Bernstein's article to hand. I cannot vouch for the dates of his joining the Nazi party, the SA, or the Luftwaffe (or indeed whether he joined the SA or Luftwaffe to begin with). Schroer states Jordan's war work was only metereological, so the Peenemünde connection may be incorrect or somewhat misleading (implying that he was one of the rocket scientists). Schroer also states that his political tendencies were showing already in the 1920's in some pamphlet writing. Schroer takes a negative view towards Jordan's participation in the CDU post-war, despite having it seems quite a lot of sympathy for him as a scientist and person. This might be a possible NPOV issue.

In the introduction I brought up his personality. This deserves to be fleshed out somewhat, along with how his conservative and likely pro-military family background probably contributed to his falling into the Nazi orbit.

I have not yet consulted the German entry. As it is my German is pretty weak, so I am doubtful I would take away very much from it.

It is important for a non-physical reader to stress Jordans participation in quantum mechanics, which even one-hundred years after still is valied. Heisenberg and Schrödinger found two formulations of quantum mechanics (l₂ and L₂ respectively) and Max Born explained to them that both are the same structure in different notations, albeit the formulations are miles apart. Then it was Jordan (together with P.A.M. Dirac) who gave the exact mathematically formulation. Actually all five of them share the same merit for inventing quantum mechanics. But only Jordan later turned to general relativity, which still today is far from being united with quantum mechanics. General Relativity was classified in the Third Reich as a jewish speculation - ununderstandable today because of it mathematical elegance, these german physicists must have been crazy. It was this elegance which attracted Jordan, as he personally explained to me, when I asked him to be a referee for my habilitation. I attended his lecture on General Relativity 1964, which he couldn't present himself, since he was an extreme stutterer (why nobody mentions this?). So his lecture usually was given by Kundt and Ehlers. They were working on gravitational waves and suddenly disappeared to Austin/Texas. So Jordan again had to stutter his lecture, which was hard to follow, but the elegance of the subject was fully exploited. As to his political role - there must have happened something in his youth, which made him an extreme anticommunist. Some people even speculate over his participation in a german nuclear program. But on the other hand, I personally was told by Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, that this program was far from leading to somewhere, and that he was extremely surprised, when he got knowledge of the first atomic bomb. As far as I know, this was taped in England, where the german physicists have been held in custody after the german capitulation. So Jordans participation in programs in Peenemünde and Wannsee has nothing to do with the atomic bomb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.133.155.70 (talk) 16:16, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Abt 12 09:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:56, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Nobel politics

The sentence "Had Jordan not joined the Nazi party, it is conceivable that he could have shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Max Born" is an admission of the extremely political nature of the Nobel Prize.Lestrade (talk) 14:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

No, it is an admission of the extremely repulsive nature of the Nazi party. Jordans work was part sheer brilliance, part sheer crackpottery, and given that the Nobel is intented to be given to those scientists whose work conferred the "greatest benefit on mankind" (Nobel's own words) a guy who tried to make the Reich a nuclear power does not exactly qualify. At least after '38, the issues people had with the Nazis were not so much political (as in "party politics" or "office politics" or whatever) but simply ethical.

History has shown you can possibly get away with more or less random mass killing of people whom you just happen to find standing in the way of your political ambition (as Stalin and Mao did, and as on a lesser scale every dictator did and does), but you cannot get away easily with a transnational program of targetted mass extermination which marks its victims long in advance, leaving them no way to escape. People are shocked by the former, but disgusted by the latter. Macchiavelli extensively pondered this issue and as anyone in Tunis these days will assert you, his conclusions are still completely true: be feared for your cruelty, and you might rule, but be hated for your cruelty and you will fall. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

A scientist's political attachments should have no influence in the selection for the Nobel Prize for Physics. It should be awarded for scientific contributions, regardless of political or religious affiliation. Repulsion and disgust are personal feelings and are not shared universally. Jordan was not tried as a war criminal and was never been able to defend himself in a public court. The case is, however, that the Nobel Prize is awarded, in many instances, in order to promote the Nobel Committee's political perspective.Lestrade (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

An award? Political? Well I never! Incidentally, one of the reasons it took until 1954 for Born to win the Nobel, when all the other architects of quantum mechanics won it much earlier, is that it took a long time to find something he did that was Nobel worthy that wasn't a collaboration with Jordan. As such, it isn't strictly accurate to say that "[Jordan] could have shared the 1954 Nobel Prize," as if he was ever going to win it, it would have happened much earlier than that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.199.40.107 (talk) 21:15, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Pudgy

Did Jordan have a weight problem? By today's standards, he would probably be considered lean.Lestrade (talk) 01:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)Lestrade