Visual: Max Born was the maternal grandfather of this celebrated musician and actor. Name her.
| Photo Credit: Eva Rinaldi
Q: Max Born was the maternal grandfather of this celebrated musician and actor. Name her.
A: Olivia Newton-John
Q: Max Born made many contributions to quantum theory. This said, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1954 for establishing the statistical interpretation of the ____________. Fill in the blank with the name of an object central to quantum theory but whose exact nature is still not fully understood.
A: Wavefunction
Q: What alternative formulation of quantum mechanics did Born help develop with Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan? This formulation describes physical quantities in arrays of numbers, each of which denotes the likelihood that one quantum state will transition into another.
A: Matrix mechanics
Q: The key idea that underlies the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is that X move much more slowly than electrons. As a result, physicists can treat X as (almost) fixed while solving the electronic Schrödinger equation; without it, calculations become extremely difficult. What is X?
A: Nuclei
Q: In 1915, Max Born published a book titled Dynakim der Kristallgitter, which laid the foundations for his work in crystal lattices. Born later expanded this work with the Chinese physicist ___ _____ into the book that became the classic reference in solid-state physics. Fill in the blanks.
A: Kun Huang
Q: At which Indian institution did Max Born spend six months in 1935-1936? He’d been invited by the head of the institution. Born also considered taking a permanent position there but couldn’t when the institution didn’t create a separate chair for him.
A: Indian Institute of Science
Published – December 12, 2025 12:29 pm IST
