Max Born - Published Works

Published Works

During his life, Born wrote several semi-popular and technical books. His volumes on topics like atomic physics and optics were very well received and are considered classics in their fields which are still in print. The following is a listing of his major works:

• Über das Thomson'sche Atommodell Habilitations-Vortrag (FAM, 1909) - The Habilitation was done at the University of Göttingen, on 23 October 1909.
• Dynamik der Kristallgitter (Teubner, 1915) - After its publication, the physicist Arnold Sommerfeld asked Born to write an article based on it for the 5th volume of the Mathematical Encyclopedia. World War I delayed the start of work on this article, but it was taken up in 1919 and finished in 1922. It was published as a revised edition under the title Atomic Theory of Solid States.
  • Dynamical Theory of Crystal Lattices, with Kun Huang. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1954)
• Die Relativitätstheorie Einsteins und ihre physikalischen Grundlagen (Springer, 1920) - Based on Born’s lectures at the University of Frankfurt am Main.
  • Available in English under the title Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
• Vorlesungen über Atommechanik (Springer, 1925)
  • Mechanics of the Atom (George Bell & Sons, 1927) - Translated by J. W. Fisher and revised by D. R. Hartree.
• Problems of Atomic Dynamics (MIT Press, 1926) – A first account of matrix mechanics being developed in Germany, based on two series of lectures given at MIT, over three months, in late 1925 and early 1926.
• Elementare Quantenmechanik (Zweiter Band der Vorlesungen über Atommechanik), with Pascual Jordan. (Springer, 1930) - This was the first volume of what was intended as a two-volume work. This volume was limited to the work Born did with Jordan on matrix mechanics. The second volume was to deal with Erwin Schrödinger’s wave mechanics. However, the second volume was not even started by Born, as he believed his friend and colleague Hermann Weyl had written it before he could do so.
• Optik: Ein Lehrbuch der elektromagnetische Lichttheorie (Springer, 1933) - The book was released just as the Borns were emigrating to England.
  • Principles of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation, Interference and Diffraction of Light, with Emil Wolf. (Pergamon, 1959) - This book is not an English translation of Optik, but rather a substantially new book. Shortly after World War II, a number of scientists suggested that Born update and translate his work into English. Since there had been many advances in optics in the intervening years, updating was warranted. In 1951, Emil Wolf began as Born’s private assistant on the book; it was eventually published in 1959 by Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press - the delay being due to the lengthy time needed “to resolve all the financial and publishing tricks created by Maxwell.”
• Moderne Physik (1933) -- Based on seven lectures given at the Technischen Hochschule Berlin.
  • Atomic Physics (Blackie, London, 1935) - Authorized translation of Moderne Physik by John Dougall, with updates.
• The Restless Universe (Blackie and Son Limited, 1935) - A popularized rendition of the workshop of nature. Born’s nephew, Otto Königsberger, whose successful career as an architect in Berlin was brought to an end when the Nazis took over, was temporarily brought to England to illustrate the book.
• Experiment and Theory in Physics (Cambridge University Press, 1943) – The address given King’s College, Newcastle upon Tyne, at the request of the Durham Philosophical Society and the Pure Science Society. An expanded version of the lecture appeared in a 1956 Dover Publications edition.
• Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (Oxford University Press, 1949) – Based on Born’s 1948 Waynflete lectures, given at the College of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford University. A later edition (Dover, 1964) included two appendices: “Symbol and Reality” and Born’s lecture given at the Nobel laureates 1964 meeting in Landau, Germany.
• A General Kinetic Theory of Liquids with H. S. Green (Cambridge University Press, 1949) -- The six papers in this book were reproduced with permission from the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
• Physics in My Generation: A Selection of Papers (Pergamon, 1956)
• Physik im Wandel meiner Zeit (Vieweg, 1957)
• Physik und Politik (VandenHoeck und Ruprecht, 1960)
• Zur Begründung der Matrizenmechanik, with Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan (Battenberg, 1962) - Published in honor of Max Born’s 80th birthday. This edition reprinted the authors’ articles on matrix mechanics published in Zeitscrift für Physik, Volumes 26 and 33-35, 1924-1926.
• My Life and My Views: A Nobel Prize Winner in Physics Writes Provocatively on a Wide Range of Subjects (Scribner, 1968) - Part II (pp. 63–206) is a translation of Verantwortung des Naturwissenschaftlers.
• Briefwechsel 1916-1955, kommentiert von Max Born with Hedwig Born and Albert Einstein (Nymphenburger, 1969)
  • The Born-Einstein Letters: Correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born from 1916–1955, with commentaries by Max Born (Macmillan, 1971).
• Mein Leben: Die Erinnerungen des Nobelpreisträgers (Munich: Nymphenburger, 1975). Born's published memoirs.
  • My Life: Recollections of a Nobel Laureate (Scribner, 1978). Translation of Mein Leben.
• Born Nobel Prize Speech - 1954
• Born Nobel Prize Lecture - 1954
• Published papers (as listed on the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS))
• Published papers (as listed on HistCite)
• Published Books (based on the Library of Congress citations)
• Published Works - Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Akademiebibliothek