Talk:Erwin Schrödinger

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Color blindness[edit]

I notice this article doesn't mention that he was apparently color blind. I came across this fact here: [1]. 216.21.161.163 (talk) 19:07, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Categorisation[edit]

I request that this article is added to Category:Austrian atheists. This fact is stated not only on this very article, but on the article List of atheists in science and technology, a whopping six sources are listed for Schrödinger:

[1][2][3][4][5][6]
LaunchOctopus (talk) 17:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done Topher385 (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Walter J. Moore (1994). A Life of Erwin Schrödinger. Cambridge University Press. pp. 289–290. ISBN 9780521469340. In one respect, however, he is not a romantic: he does not idealize the person of the beloved, his highest praise is to consider her his equal. "When you feel your own equal in the body of a beautiful woman, just as ready to forget the world for you as you for her - oh my good Lord - who can describe what happiness then. You can live it, now and again - you cannot speak of it." Of course, he does speak of it, and almost always with religious imagery. Yet at this time he also wrote, "By the way, I never realized that to be nonbelieving, to be an atheist, was a thing to be proud of. It went without saying as it were." And in another place at about this same time: "Our creed is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don't." Whatever problems they may have had in their love affair, the pangs of conscience were not among them. Sheila was as much an unbeliever as Erwin, but in a less complex, more realistic way. She was never entirely convinced by his vedantic theology.
  2. ^ Andrea Diem-Lane. Spooky Physics. MSAC Philosophy Group. p. 42. ISBN 9781565430808. In terms of religion, Schrodinger fits in the atheist camp. He even lost a marriage proposal to his love, Felicie Krauss, not only due to his social status but his lack of religious affiliation. He was known as a freethinker who did not believe in god. But interestingly Schrodinger had a deep connection to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Eastern philosophy in general. Erwin studied numerous books on Eastern thought as well as the Hindu scriptures. He was enthralled with Vedanta thought and connected ideas of oneness and unity of mind with his research on quantum physics, specifically wave mechanics.
  3. ^ Moore, Walter (1994). A Life of Erwin Schrödinger. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-46934-0. Schopenhauer often called himself an atheist, as did Schrodinger, and if Buddhism and Vedanta can be truly described as atheistic religions, both the philosopher and his scientific disciple were indeed atheists. They both rejected the idea of a "personal God," and Schopenhauer thought that "pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism."
  4. ^ Moore, Walter (1989). Schrödinger: Life and Thought. ISBN 0-521-43767-9. He rejected traditional religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of emotional antipathy, for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors, but simply by saying that they are naive.
  5. ^ Walter J. Moore (1992). Schrödinger: Life and Thought. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780521437677. He claimed to be an atheist, but he always used religious symbolism and believed his scientific work was an approach to the godhead.
  6. ^ "Erwin Schrodinger" (PDF). Retrieved 22 June 2012. He claimed to be an atheist, but he used religious symbolism and believed that his scientific work was 'an approach to God'.

derrick is life


Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2017[edit]

I propose the irrelevant reference to Terry Rudolph under the Personal Life section be removed. In addition to the sentence itself sounding a bit "tabloid like", it provides no citation. 198.180.182.201 (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: Thank you for your suggestion; however, the quantum physicist-professor-grandson is definitely relevant to Schrödinger's PL section, in my humble opinion. Inline reference citations have been included along with relevant links.  Paine Ellsworth  u/c 20:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with the concept that relevancy will be a matter of opinion, I'm more interested in a citation to the truth of the claim. I do not know of any biography written by a historian where that link is claimed with any kind of evidence presented. It appears in the odd pop-sci book, but the legally recognized descendants (Braunizer family) are Austrian. [Apologies if I'm messing up this editing, first time doing something other than reading Wikipedia!] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.180.182.201 (talk • contribs)

I understand your misgivings and will continue to try to find reliable sources for the relationship. I've found several sources that Wikipedia would consider unreliable that talk about the relationship; however, it seems that Rudolph only found out that he was Schrödinger's grandson after he became a physicist. And now Rudolph seems to want to play down the relationship, possibly because he thinks that those are huge shoes to fill. I watched his inaugural speech yesterday, and he appears to be a personable young man in a wide open field of science. There is even a fair possibility that he will actually follow in his grandfather's footsteps and win his own Nobel. In any event, I shall leave this open to see what other editors think – I personally don't see any harm in leaving the claim in the article for now, and I really will try to find more reliable evidence of the relationship, which thus far doesn't seem to be very newsworthy.  Paine Ellsworth  u/c 20:39, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Listed above are two sources of the claim that Wikipedia would consider to be reliable sources, even moreso than the ones already used in the article. I will transfer the latter to a position below this post and will use the above sources in the article. If you still think that the claim is false, then your task will now be to find reliable sources that refute the claim. If this can be done, then either the claim can be refuted in the article, or the claim may be removed from the article entirely. Thank you again for your input, and best to you!  Paine Ellsworth  u/c 11:27, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2017[edit]

I do not understand the relevance of 'Google Doodle' for this biography? Why for the god's sake is relevant that google commemorated Schrödinger with some Doodle? Completely arbitrary fact. In line should we encourage people to keep adding completely arbitrary facts to articles? I think this should be removed.

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Izno (talk) 12:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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"Legacy"[edit]

Todd Sampson wore a t-shirt with this article's lead image of Schrödinger on the ABC's show Gruen on 18 October 2017. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 3 November 2017[edit]

The first sentence in Erwin Schrödinger#Colour states: "Schrödinger had a strong interest in psychology, in particular colour perception and colorimetry (Farbenmetrik). He spent few years of his life working on these questions and published a series of papers in this area:". It makes better sense to me, if that was modified to He spent _a_ few years of his life. 79.44.36.54 (talk) 08:27, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Parsing trouble[edit]

Is it only me or something is amiss here? "revealed the identity of his development of the formalism and matrix mechanics" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.54.232.175 (talk) 05:16, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That part was added by Thepalerider2012 on 27 September 2012. I suggest to remove it. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:13, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Better English phrase[edit]

"He wrote about 50 further publications on various topics" would be better written using "around", not "about" i.e. "He wrote around 50 further publications on various topics"; it refers to the quantity of the publications - the publications were not the subject of his writings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.78.82.6 (talk) 08:53, 22 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Later Years[edit]

In the second paragraph of Later years, He received a personal invitation from Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera to come to Ireland but on the page of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Institute_for_Advanced_Studies in History section, it says that Erwin Schrödinger was interested in coming to Ireland. Which statement is true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amircoldscug (talk • contribs) 13:32, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting discussion on being 'Irish'[edit]

So, Schrodinger was Austrian - born to Austrian parents, in Austria, and presumably with Austrian ancestry (with apparently British ancestry and, according to the category list with no mention in the article, Hungarian ancestry).

After about fifty years (the article isn't clear, mentioning only "the same year", and receiving an invitation, which can only presumably mean 1938.. or maybe the invitation was 1933? Maybe he recieved the invitation in 1938 but actually travelled later?), he moved to the Republic of Ireland, where he taught.

Seventeen years later, he had retired and returned to Austria, having apparently taken citizenship of the Republic of Ireland (the demonym for which is 'Irish') after having lived there for ten years.

So he spent seven years in the Republic of Ireland as a citizen of that country.

So how does this qualify him as an "Irish physicist", exactly?

This phrase, in the categories, implies much more than the reality of the situation: which is that he spent seven years as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. I've no idea what happens to naturalised citizenship once you leave a particular country. So far as I can tell, he never returned to the Republic of Ireland.

It is a particularly interesting question, given the attitudes of some people (both Irish and foreign) with regard to what constitutes being 'Irish'. There are a substanstial number of people living in Ireland who, for example, had varying degrees of Scottish, English and Welsh ancestry. Some extremists view these people as not being Irish, despite their ancestors having been born there for centuries.

Yet this Wiki article declares a person who lived in Ireland for about seventeen years, and then never returned to the place, as an "Irish physicist".

Notably, I can see from the Wiki categories also, that there is (for some unknown reason) a strong tendancy to refer to Northern Irish people as "people from Northern Ireland"; while at the same time, Wiki has articles for "English actors"; "Welsh engineers"; and "Scottish scientists" etc.

So people from Northern Ireland aren't Northern Irish, according to Wikipedia? Yet people from England are English. There is no logic behind any of this, nor any consistency.

Anyway, back to Schrodinger, who was apparently both Irish and not Irish!

Schrodiger, you see, was never Irish. This is not something you can change. Except through citizenship, specifically of the Republic of Ireland, and only because their chosen demonym is 'Irish' (interestingly, and rather by contrast to the way Wikipedia arbitrarily treats Northern Irish subjects, people from the Republic of Ireland are categorised as 'Irish actors' etc, rather than the more logically consistent 'Actors from the Republic of Ireland' - obviously the ambiguity between citizenship of the Republic of Ireland and actually being Irish is not a problem here).

So Schrodinger was a citizen of the Republic of Ireland (aka an 'Irish citizen'; aka "Southern Irish"), but was never actually Irish: both Irish and not Irish. A wave, but not a particle?

But he was certainly not an "Irish physicist", surely. --82.21.97.70 (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No one in Ireland would consider him Irish in anything but a legal sense either but its wikipedia's policy to refer to citizenship as nationality unless someone specifies otherwise. 2A02:8084:4EE2:5E00:159B:2B6B:9590:1D85 (talk) 16:59, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remarkable intellectual versatility[edit]

I remember in my sixth form days at school (between 1983 and 1985) I read in the Encyclopedia Brittanica (in those far-off days when this source was published on paper) that of all the physicists of his generation, Erwin Schrodinger stood out because of his amazing intellectual versatility. Should this go in the article? Vorbee (talk) 08:41, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please mention this important line in the article[edit]

Please mention Erwin Schrodinger was recruited by CV Raman during world War crisis. Source Rizosome (talk) 13:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Arcticle on Erdberg, Vienna?[edit]

There is no article on Erdberg the neighborhood, and I can't find any info, help out please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheFirstVicar4 (talk • contribs) 15:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The neigborhood of Erdberg lies in the southeastern part of Vienna between the city's center and the Danube. Erdberg forms parts of Vienna's 3rd District, Landstrasse (more correctly spelled "Landstraße"), and Vienna's 11th District, Simmering. A good article about Erdberg (albeit in German) can be found in the German-language Wikipedia at:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdberg_(Wien).
In addition, Google Maps outlines the Erdberg area at:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Erdberg,+Vienna,+Austria/@48.1882229,16.3874063,13z. Xinbad (talk) 22:26, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Request[edit]

- Caption to the fourth photograph "Schrödinger (front row 4th from left)at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1942" is plainly in error. Erwin Schroedinger is seated front row second from the right. The person in front row 4th from left is plainly Eamon de Valera, then President of Ireland.2001:BB6:43C3:5D58:20B8:AD7D:FC78:31A0 (talk) 17:07, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Request[edit]

Thanks whoever edited the Caption on the fourth Photograph. Please forgive the quibble, but the name of the fourth from left seated is not 'Valera' but 'de Valera' or 'De Valera'. To anyone who has read any Irish history 'Valera' looks plain silly. It would be better to leave the man's name out of the caption than to insert it in this form. As a point of interest (not part of this requested edit) national political leader Eamon de Valera was effectively the founder of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, and its School of Theoretical Physics was partly inspired by a desire to accommodate exiles such as E. Schroedinger. 2001:BB6:43C3:5D58:20B8:AD7D:FC78:31A0 (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How Erwin Schrödinger indulged his ‘Lolita complex’ in Ireland[edit]

this should probably be added at some point as it seems to be known has a few sources that are quite serious and detailed

The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/how-erwin-schr%C3%B6dinger-indulged-his-lolita-complex-in-ireland-1.4749204?mode=sample&amp%3Bauth-failed=1&amp%3Bpw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Flife-and-style%2Fpeople%2Fhow-erwin-schr%25C3%25B6dinger-indulged-his-lolita-complex-in-ireland-1.4749204

TAZ https://taz.de/Missbrauch-und-Missachtung/!5823374/

--ChristopheT (talk) 12:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Added it from a translation with DeepL from the German Wiki article. Someone with better English knowledge might want to correct a few things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.212.239.87 (talk) 22:11, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This whole "parthenophilia" thing should be changed. That sounds like a fake word, no one knows what it means. It should be replaced with "sexual abuse of underage girls." Or similar. Amplifysound (talk) 02:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I applied that change, along with a few fixes to remove language that verged on original research or that seemed to non-neutrally describe a source or the intentions of a source's author. - Astrophobe (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Did some work on this to remove non-neutral comments. I don't have access to the Irish Times article so cannot check dates/times and quotes; if the person who originally added them check quote marks end in the correct place. I would add that the age of consent in Ireland has been 17 since 1935.[2] Unsure if this is worthy of adding, or stands as WP:OR. Solipsism 101 (talk) 13:39, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@HPfan4: you removed the sexual abuser claims, citing WP:UNDUE and WP:WEIGHT, and saying it is based on a single article (diff). I would like to gain consensus here for re-adding the content. It has been restated in The Times which is a newspaper of record in the United Kingdom, An article in The Irish Times last month exposed Schrödinger as a paedophile who groomed girls as young as 12 years old. Schrödinger documented some of his abuse in a diary, where he justified his actions on the grounds of his academic abilities.[3] It has also been covered by Forbes.[4] The author in The Times adopts the claim uncritically. I can see no reason to think the biography is likely inaccurate, especially if it is trusted by three reliable sources. Solipsism 101 (talk) 19:06, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This content should be added back in, I definitely agree with @Solipsism 101:. There doesn’t seem to be any disagreement that this is what happened and the sources are straightforward in their account. This isn’t a neutrality issue. Schrodinger really did these things. jps (talk) 13:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Moore biography, as well, seems to have not been criticized on this account. Helge Kragh criticized Moore for not appreciating the History of Science scholarship enough, but there is no hint that Kragh judges the accounting of these encounters is incorrect, [5] I think this work needs to be discussed for completeness. jps (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I note that there is a riposte in an Austrian publication that I managed to read: [6] What I found interesting about the rejoinder is that it does not really take issue with many of the facts of the matter (there are quibbles with some of the timelines presented in The Irish Times, but they amount to nothing particularly exculpatory that I can tell). Schrodinger did have at least two "affairs" (to use a rather obnoxious Bowdlerization, but anyway) with young women under the age of 17 that have been documented since Moore wrote his biography and, as far as I can tell, aside from the family being upset that the biography was written with certain armchair psychologizing (fair enough, Moore is not a psychologist), there have been no convincing arguments that the basic facts documented in these cases are incorrect. jps (talk) 18:32, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, given the WP:SILENCE I'm seeing here, I went ahead and added some text to the article including a paragraph in the lede about his personal life to achieve proper WP:WEIGHT. jps (talk) 12:46, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • My apologies, I didn't see the discussion of the article. Well, the article in Irish Times (the tertiary source) is based on two bios (secondary sources), one by Walter Moore and another by John Gribbin. The bio by Gribbin is seemingly based on the one by Moore, and they both say the following:
  1. Schrödinger's sexual relationship with Ithi didn't start until she was 17, which was the age of consent in Ireland.
  2. He had no romantic or sexual relationship with the 12 year old Barbara MacEntee: according to Moore, he wrote a poem to her about neatness and good behavior, and her family was apparently alarmed and fended him off. There is no proof that he actually had the intent of sexually abusing her, and in general, "the intent of committing a crime" is problematic to prove if no crime was committed.
  3. "Kate Nolan" was already 26 when Schrödinger started hitting on her, and Moore says that "Erwin's siege of Nolan lasted almost a year before she capitulated". It may indicate an uncomfortable relationship or selfishness on his part, but neither Moore nor Gribbin say that he raped her or did anything else that was non-consensual.

In short, Schrödinger likely had a history of behavior that can be considered sleazy (especially by today's standards), and there can be a discussion on how much of it may be included in the article - but there's nothing that would justify the use of scare words like "pedophile", "abuser" and "victim" that imply that he was a sexual offender (which he wasn't), that he committed rape or had sex with children. --HPfan4 (talk) 23:39, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the age of the "sexual relationship" identified anywhere as 17. Can you point to the source that indicates that? Note that sexual interaction does not need to be intercourse. Also, our article as written did not say he had any sexual encounter with MacEntee. I think the article was fairly clear on that, so I don't understand that objection. Finally, the fact that there was an accusation by Kate Nolan of non-consensual relationship is just true.
The word "paedophile" is appropriately attributed to The Irish Times and there is no particular reason for us to shy from it as it is duly attributed and contextualized. The word "victim" was used only in respect to the anonymous accuser (which is pretty standard in these situations -- since this is not a court or legal proceed dispense with "alleged" victim, perhaps we can include that if you think it absolutely necessary). The final question is one of the word "abuse". The word is actually fairly broad. Sexual abuse ranges from rape to harassment. In the case of the essentially universally acknowledged interactions between tutor and student, it is hard for me to understand why this would be disputed. There are those who claim that applying contemporary standards is a problem, but I don't actually see that critique showing up here.
In short, I think this smacks a lot of removing what has been an extensively discussed aspect of Schrödinger's biography (and there was actually two more sources added that discuss it including one you recommended). Word choice can be discussed, but outright removal like this seems problematic at best.
jps (talk) 01:26, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On Ithi, the bio by Moore says the following: "not long after her (Ithi's) seventeenth birthday, they became lovers". On Kate Nolan, neither of the bios say that she claimed non-consensual relationship or accused Schrödinger of anything: Moore only states that Nolan's mother "was indignant and threatened Erwin with public denunciation" (which is a predictable reaction from a parent to a daughter's extramarital pregnancy, consensual or not), and also makes the vague statement that Nolan said to Lena Lean that "did not understand how it (her pregnancy) ever happened". As for the paedophile and abuser part, none of Schrödinger's bios used these words, and that's a very strong statement in regards to a a figure of his magnitude; so when the person who makes it is neither a historian of science nor a sexologist specializing in paraphilias, but just a journalist, it feels WP:UNDUE to include that quote. --HPfan4 (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a reading of Moore indicates that there was nothing that happened prior to Junger's seventeenth birthday. In fact, Moore indicates that Schrödinger fondled her during their lessons (even mentioned in the New York Times! [7]) You can see that Gribbin is the one being quoted regarding the interactions in any case, which is pretty clear. As regards Nolan, the family was fairly adamant that there was something nonconsensual regarding the interactions. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant to the text below where we explicitly argue that it is a "claim" which, I think, can hardly be argued otherwise. I agree that the word "paedophile" is strong, but that is exactly why it is attributed. The reader is not going to be misled into thinking that it is Wikipedia who is labeling as such. This also isn't a formal diagnosis (and Wikipedia rarely requires that in these instances that I can see -- I guess you can take this to WP:RSN if you disagree). In any case, the accusation is famous enough to have been discussed in Der Standard, so it seems weird to just pretend like it did not happen at all.
Now as for the word "abuse", I'm still not clear as to how this can be argued contrariwise. We are not identifying particular abuse. This is not a trial or an inquest. But the stories are such that it seems clear that the "sleazy" behavior, as you put it, rises to a level that is different than just prudish disdain considering the ages of those included in the accounts. To argue that it is not "abuse" seems to be bending over backwards for some alternate world where behaving like a sleaze to teenagers when you are well into your adulthood requires a different label. I'm happy to ask for sources for this sort of thing, if there are any. Even Der Standard doesn't try to make any calls in that regard. I do not think we are being dishonest when we describe such things as "abuse". Do you?
jps (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The bio by Gribbin is seemingly based on the one by Moore I don't see how this can be the case as Gribbin was published five years prior to Moore. jps (talk) 23:09, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is a confusion between two books: the 1984 In Search of Schrödinger's Cat is a pop science book on quantum theory that doesn't cover the controversial aspects of Schrödinger's bio, and the one that's quoted by the Irish Times is the 2012 "Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution". This 2012 book merely repeats Moore's statements on Ithi, Nolan, MacEntee, etc. without adding new context to them, so essentially, it all boils down to Moore. And the Der Standard article mentions that Erwin's relatives were deeply dissatisfied with Moore's book and severed contacts with him after the publication, accusing him of misrepresentation of the facts and of misunderstanding the source materials (Moore's knowledge of German was poor). --HPfan4 (talk) 23:37, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that this is sufficient impeachment for us to throw away the entire story. There is a level of WP:MANDY to the family's dissatisfaction and we are not including the armchair psychologizing which was what was criticized most. Let's get down to business, then. Right now, it seems to me that most people are not in favor of your approach, but aside from excising completely, what edits would you make to the section below to have it conform with your interpretations of sources without WP:OR? jps (talk) 02:52, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Workshop the section[edit]

Below is the section that was removed. Objections have been bolded to highlight the controversial text as far as I can tell. Most of the text, according to my reading, is not contested (except that perhaps there are concerns about accuracy of the sources -- but we attribute them and we know these sources are well-cited so excising them does not seem possible unless and until there is record setting of a somewhat more serious fashion than what appeared in Der Standard. jps (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Imputations of sexual abuse[edit]

Schrödinger kept a record of his sexual liaisons including children he may have sexually abused in a diary he called Ephemeridae, in it claiming a "predilection for teenage girls on the grounds that their innocence was the ideal match for his natural genius".[1]

At the age of 39, Schrödinger tutored 14-year-old "Ithi" Junger. As John Gribbin recounted in his 2012 biography of Schrödinger, "As well as the maths, the lessons included `a fair amount of petting and cuddling' and Schrödinger soon convinced himself that he was in love with Ithi".[2] Junger became pregnant by Schrödinger at 17, and he eventually left her and moved on to other targets.[3]

Carlo Rovelli notes in his book Helgoland that Schrödinger "always kept a number of relationships going at once – and made no secret of his fascination with preadolescent girls." In Ireland, Rovelli writes, he had one child each from two students.[4] While carrying out research into a family tree, Bernard Biggar uncovered reports of Schrödinger grooming his mother, Barbara MacEntee, when she was 12 years old.[1] Apparently, her uncle, the mathematician and priest Pádraig de Brún, advised Schrödinger to no longer pursue her,[5] and Schrödinger later wrote in his journal that she was one of his "unrequited loves".[6] MacEntee died in 1995, with the accounts emerging posthumously.[7]

Kate Nolan, a pseudonym used by surviving family to protect the victim, was also impregnated by Schrödinger amid claims of a lack of consent. Walter Moore's biography of the scientist outlined that Schrödinger's attitude towards the women was "was essentially that of a male supremacist",[8] an assessment corroborated by Helge Kragh in his review of Moore's biography, "The conquest of women, especially very young women, was the salt of life for this sincere romantic and male chauvanist."[9] In a 2021 Irish Times article, Schrödinger's pattern of serial abuse was identified by the paper as a "behaviour [that] fitted the profile of a paedophile in the widely understood sense of that term."[1] The physics department of Trinity College Dublin announced in January 2022 that they would rename a lecture theater that had been dedicated to Schrödinger in light of his history of sexual abuse.[10]

Discussion[edit]

I can see no valid objection to this, we call it what it is.Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am inclined to agree, unsurprisingly, but I am still holding out hope that there may be a way to satisfy all interests here. Perhaps that hope is in vain. jps (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also see no objection grounded in policies and guidelines. The sources are there; this text summarizes what they say. XOR'easter (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What a pity. He was a great scientist and I've read a couple of his books. Seems no doubt aobut it though. NadVolum (talk) 18:50, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

HPfan4 (talk · contribs) Right now you continue to be the only person who is in favor of excising the above section. Normally I would just reinstate at this point in the discussion given the lopsidedness, but given the sensitive nature of the topic, I am inclined to wait a little longer to see if there are any edits that you might make in the spirit of consensus. I acknowledge that there is concern that all of the evidence from Schrödinger is derived from the 1989 biography, but the only source we have which criticizes this fact does not seem to take issue with any of the framing we are offering in the above section. To eliminate the section completely is, I think, not tenable. That said, I think the bolded parts are still the most controversial in terms of editorial interpretation, and while I think there are strong arguments made above for keeping the statements as is, I would like to verify that there aren't any alternative approaches that might work better. jps (talk) 12:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, first of all, I find the formulation "a number of children he abused" very problematic: even if Moore's account is to be fully trusted, he brings up only three names (MacEntee, Ithi, and Lotte Rella) in the context of Erwin's alleged "Lolita complex". Schrödinger's relationship with Barbara MacEntee didn't involve anything like "petting and cuddling" (let alone intercourse) that might qualify as sexual abuse, and when he dated Lotte Rella, he was still in high school, and Lotte's parents were hoping for a marriage. And even in regards to Ithi and Barbara, I would clearly attribute the statements to Moore, as something along the lines of: "The 1989 bio by John Moore alleged that Schrödinger sexually abused the 14-year old 14-year-old "Ithi" Junger who was under his tutorage, and also attempted to groom Barbara MacEntee when she was 12 years old" (and therefore use the section title "Sexual abuse allegation" or something like that). Regarding Nolan, it's not clear for me where does the "lack of consent" statement come from, the Irish Times only says the following: "“It took Erwin some time to break down her resistance,” Gribbin writes. “He did so in the summer of 1945, and when the inevitable happened Kate confessed to Lena Lean, the Schrödingers’ resident childminder, that she was not quite sure how she had become pregnant. Of all Schrödinger’s ‘conquests’, this is the hardest to justify on the grounds of ‘true love’. The Der Standard article also refutes the statement quoted by Rovelli that Schrödinger impregnated two of his students in Ireland: in reality, one of these women was Nolan, and the other was Sheila May, an actress and political activist. Finally, I still think that including the "paedophile" quotation from Joe Humphreys is WP:UNDUE due to his lack of credentials. --HPfan4 (talk) 08:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's organize them one at a time:

  • a number of children he abused might beg the question of "how many"? Removing "a number" might help that.
  • I don't think we can make a judgement about whether the interactions with MacEntee rose to any level. We know the story is relevant because all the sources mention it. Sexual abuse can also be grooming, remember. It's best for Wikipedia to make no judgement call one way or another.
  • I don't think we can attribute statement just to Moore. This is assuming that the Der Standard piece is entirely correct and all the rest of the sources are sloppy which I don't think we can do. We have four different sources (five if you count the NY Times review) which uncritically declaim that events occurred that would qualify as abuse, and it's not up to us to decide whether the authors were basing their entire claim on just Moore's biography.
  • I think using the word "imputation" may be a bit better than allegation. Tried above.
  • I don't understand why you find it unclear where the "lack of consent" prose comes from. That seems a reasonable and concise summary to me.
  • I don't think Der Standard actually refutes anything. The piece takes issue with the statement, but there are leaps of interpretation being made that may or may not be justified. Also, it is not clear to me that Der Standard has convincingly identified that these two were not students of Schrödinger in some regard. The impeachment is there, but it is not a straightforward fact check that we can use to argue that text is just a WP:COATrack. Wikipedia is at the mercy of the sources and I just don't think we are at a point where we can say that this account of Rovelli's is incorrect.
  • Finally, as I said above, there is no requirement that anyone have a certain set of "credentials" to say behavior rises to the level of pedophilia. We attribute such statements because they are strong claims, but this is not a claim that is being made haphazardly. Again, if you think it a problem, you can ask at WP:RSN if that source can be used as attributed. I am pretty sure I know what the consensus on this sort of thing is likely to be, but I could be wrong.

jps (talk) 11:46, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to enact WP:ENEMY here, and while it would be nice if HPfan4 would do the same, it is obviously not a requirement. In any case, I think the exercise has improved the style of the section to a certain extent. However, I am basically at the point now where I don't see anything else additional that can be done. I am inclined to reinstate the section as it is currently written. jps (talk) 15:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine with that. XOR'easter (talk) 22:59, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I take extreme issue with your statement sexual abuse can also be grooming; "groomimg" is impossible to prove or disprove, absent any clear inappropriate behaviour, which in this case there was none. Where does that end? With that standard, ANY interaction with ANY child, including that of a parent, could be alleged by any other person as "grooming" and therefore any conversing with any child is now worthy to be called sexual abuse? These newspapers are seemingly starved for scandals like this, because scandals of this nature sell. Hot button buzzwords to evoke moral outrage are never "reliable", no matter who they're coming from. And the dead are open targets for them, because the dead cannot be libeled. Thus, all standards go out the window. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:90D6:2849:488A:3FB8 (talk) 02:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is not for us to argue. That grooming has been identified by a variety of sources as a type of abuse is a fact. You may disagree with those sources, but that's not how we approach the production of prose at Wikipedia. For that reason, we really aren't supposed to have this kind of discussion on the talk page as according to WP long-standing policies and guidelines, such a dispute over the opinions of editors about content is irrelevant to the question of what prose to include and how to write it. Your opinion about what the newspapers have said may be good fodder for creating other sources that we can use, in fact, but, crucially, our hands are tied by sources. To that end, if you would like to effect change here, you'll need to get your analysis published in a reliable venue and get other reliable sources to notice. Only then can the prose in our article change to address that. But until then, there really is nothing we can do in article space to accommodate your analysis. jps (talk) 13:38, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ a b c Humphreys, Joe (2021-12-11). "How Erwin Schrödinger indulged his 'Lolita complex' in Ireland". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
  2. ^ Gribbin, John (2012). Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution. London: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-593-06776-5. OCLC 819620649.
  3. ^ Teresi, Dick (1990-01-07). "The Lone Ranger of Quantum Mechanics". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  4. ^ Rovelli, Carlo (2021). Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution. Translated by Segre, Erica; Carnell, Simon (First North American ed.). New York. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-593-32888-0. OCLC 1202306074.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ "Erwin Schrödinger: Missbrauchstäter und/oder Rufmordopfer?". Der Standard (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2022-02-02.
  6. ^ Druce, Jody (2022-01-11). "Physics Staff to Call for Schrödinger Theatre to be Renamed". The University Times. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  7. ^ Sotscheck, Ralf (2022-01-04). "Missbrauch und Missachtung: Nicht zu relativieren". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  8. ^ Moore, Walter John (1989). Schrödinger, life and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35434-X. OCLC 18463423.
  9. ^ Kragh, Helge (1990). "Review of Schrödinger. Life and Thought". The British Journal for the History of Science. 23 (2): 231–233. ISSN 0007-0874.
  10. ^ Corr, Julieanne (2022-01-25). "Trinity to drop Schrödinger lecture theatre name over sex abuse". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2022-02-07.

color or colour?[edit]

As far as I can see this article first used "color" rather than "colour" and the rule is that we then stick with that. --Bduke (talk) 04:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have thought since he got Irish citizenship it should be colour. Not something he was notable for so not a very strong reason though. NadVolum (talk) 01:17, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

male supremacist?[edit]

How can you be a male supremacist and have an open relationship? He was married to Annemarie Bertel who had a long time relationship to Hermann Weyl. How does tolerating that relationship fit together with being a "male supremacist"? - Haaklich (talk) 18:04, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not our job to try and make assessments consistent. just to say things with due weight accordig to the source. NadVolum (talk) 19:42, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Update on the allegations - probably worth at least a discussion, maybe even an edit/deletion/added context etc.[edit]

There's another article (referencing among other things a new biography as well as statements by some of the women involved) that seems to indicate that several if not most/all of the allegations regarding "sexual assault" of minors, "grooming", "pedophilia" etc. are dubious at best, some outright wrong. While I don't have the time to go through this line by line and source by source (nor the editing privilege I think), this to me seems like enough conflicting/contradicting evidence + criticism of the original claims (by Moore, the others only cite him, sometimes wrongly) to at least warrant a discussion, mention in the article about the disputed nature of the claims, or maybe even taking them out of the article until the issue is resolved (if more evidence/info is needed). Because the allegations are very heavy and damaging to the persons reputation aswell as affecting their family, so if they are on such shaky ground as they seem to be this should at least be considered, even if it is not a living person in this entry. This is the article I reference: https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000140122217/schroedingers-verlorene-ehre-und-ein-versuch-ihrer-wiederherstellung - not to be confused with another article on the issue which is older (https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000132657725/erwin-schroedinger-missbrauchstaeter-undoder-rufmordopfer). Geronator (talk) 02:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the Clary book that the author cites doesn't so much refute the allegations as muddy the waters by appealing to the alleged indecipherability of Schrodinger's handwritten notes that served as the basis for (some of) Moore's claims; to me, it is very telling that the only reference in Clary's book to Ithi was that she wrote him a letter of congratulations for his Nobel Prize, while several pages are devoted to the aforementioned water-muddying; he also obliquely chides Moore for not including these congratulatory letters in the biography -- and the only reason to add this remark is because Clary sees them as somehow exculpatory, which IMO is a huge red flag.
And, in any case, Schrodinger's predatory behavior with school-age girls was well-documented and remarked upon by his contemporaries; if specific details need to be corrected, by all means let's correct them, but I can't imagine there would be consensus for removing or significantly altering the section on the basis of a single German-language article. 2600:1702:6D1:28B0:1569:E3C:60C7:5729 (talk) 04:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to know what to do with this source. Taschwert seems to think that there is some rehabilitation in Clary's book, but it is largely in the same vein as the article he published prior to this. The main thrust seems clearly meant to lambaste Moore, but the basis of this criticism is pretty weak. Details are claimed to be incorrect, but without corroboration, how do we know that is true? It becomes an argument over points for which we have no evidence since the archives are sealed. Again, it seems that the broad strokes of what happened are not criticized. Instead, what is criticized are implications. Crucially, in our article, all applications are attributed to those who made them. We make no argument as to what the plain facts of the matter are except when there is no dispute over them (we WP:ASSERT facts, including facts about opinions). So I think we're good here. Unless somebody sees some cause to include some relevant point from Clary that directly affects article content, I think we've no cause to do anything about the abuse allegations. I note, however, that Clary seems to have some material that may be useful for other parts of the article. jps (talk) 21:36, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

the thesis link is 404 2A01:E0A:1F1:7BE0:4F8:BB4A:95DC:5138 (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Schrödinger's cat is named in his honour"[edit]

What does this even mean? Dinosaurtoaster (talk) 12:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's an arbitrary thing to have in the 'awards' section. I removed it. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 13:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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