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First edition, very rare offprints, of these two papers on quantum mechanics, from the library of the man who invented it (and received the 1932 Nobel Prize for its invention) - both offprints have Heisenberg's personal ink stamp on the upper wrapper. We are not aware of any other scientific works from Heisenberg's library having appeared on the market. Wessel (1900-84) was, like his contemporary Heisenberg (1901-76), a student of Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951) at Munich from 1921. He went, with Heisenberg and Sommerfeld, to Gottingen, then the centre for the development of quantum mechanics, where he obtained a doctorate under Max Born in 1924. In 1929 he completed his habilitation at Jena on Schrodinger's wave mechanics, and remained there teaching quantum mechanics, becoming extraordinary professor in 1939. In the first paper, "The equations of motion of the classical electron theory, including the radiation reaction, are brought into a form in which they can be compared with those of Dirac's theory of the electron. A classical analogue is also found for the spin variables." In the second paper, "If one requires that not only the Dirac equation of the electron corresponds to the classical equation for the constancy of the 4-velocity, but also a second order equation derived from Dirac's equation that corresponds to the perpendicularity of the 4-velocity and the 4-acceleration that follows from the classical equation, one is led to an extension of the Dirac equation in which the incoming electric and magnetic fields satisfy non-linear field equations. These equations become those of Born electrodynamics when Planck's constant is set to zero and a certain generalization is made in the connection between the field strengths and the potentials." Heisenberg himself started working on the consequences of the Dirac equation in 1933, publishng several papers on the subject in Zeitschrift für Physik. The ink stamp gives Heisenberg's address as 'Linnestr. 5, Leipzig.' He was appointed professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leipzig in 1926, and remained there until 1941. Two offprints, 8vo, pp. 407-424; [1, blank], 520-533, [1, blank]. Original printed wrappers. Seller Inventory # ABE-1723460884985
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