His father was teaching anatomy at the university but his main interest was in research in embryology and in the mechanics of evolution.
He studied mathematics at universities in Breslau, Heidelberg and Zurich before go to Gottingen. Max Born studied at Gottingen as a graduate student in 1904 where, two year later he got his PhD with a paper in elasticity theory for which he received a prize.
In 1915 he left Gottingen for Berlin where as an associate professor he spent the war years on military duty.
In 1919 he became full professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main and in the spring of 1921 he came back to Gottingen.
It had been Max Born who in July 1925, had realized that Heisenberg’s odd multiplication rule was, in fact, the rule for multiplying matrices. He was therefore one of the founders of quantum mechanics.
He became well known for his contribution to the theory of the properties of crystals, quantum theory, and the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics.
He became a British National and held the Tait Chair of Theoretical Physics in Edinburgh from 1936 until his retirement in 1953.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1954.
Max Born (11 Dec 1882 – 5 January 1970)
