On Max Born's "Vorlesungen ueber Atommechanik, Erster Band"

TL;DR

This paper examines Max Born's 1925 book on Bohr-Sommerfeld quantisation, highlighting its epistemological and technical significance in the historical development of quantum physics.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of Born's approach to axiomatization and quantisation before the advent of matrix mechanics, offering historical insights.

Findings

Born's book emphasizes the role of axiomatization in physics heuristics

It discusses the concept of quantisation prior to Heisenberg and Schrödinger

The work contributes to understanding the foundations of early quantum theory

Abstract

A little more than half a year before Matrix Mechanics was born, Max Born finished his book "Vorlesungen ueber Atommechanik, Erster Band", which is a state-of-the-art presentation of Bohr-Sommerfeld quantisation. This book, which today seems almost forgotten, is remarkable for its epistemological as well as technical aspects. Here I wish to highlight one aspect in each of these two categories, the first being concerned with the r\^ole of axiomatisation in the heuristics of physics, the second with the problem of quantisation proper before Heisenberg and Schr\"odinger. This paper is a contribution to the project "History and Foundations of Quantum Physics" of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Sciences in Berlin and will appear in the book "Research and Pedagogy. The History of Quantum Physics through its Textbooks", edited by M.Badino and J.Navarro.