Werner Heisenberg the first to reinterpret the Dirac equation as a "classical" field equation for any point particle of spin ħ/2, itself subject to quantization conditions involving anti-commutators. Thus reinterpreting it as a (quantum) field equation accurately describing electrons, Heisenberg put matter on the same footing as electromagnetism: as being described by relativistic quantum field equations which allowed the possibility of particle creation and destruction. (Hermann Weyl had already described this in a 1929 letter to Albert Einstein.) Heisenberg's paper establishing quantum mechanics has puzzled physicists and historians. His methods assume that the reader is familiar with Kramers-Heisenberg transition probability calculations. The
Heisenberg group connection with the theta functions. If , are integers (in the ring Z) then one has the discrete Heisenberg group H(Z). It is a non-abelian nilpotent group. It has two generators, and relations where is the generator of the center of H. (Note that the inverses of "x", "y", and "z" replace the 1 above the diagonal with −1.) By Bass's theorem, it has a polynomial growth rate of order 4. One can generate any element through If one takes "a, b, c" in Z/"p" Z for an odd prime "p", then one has the Heisenberg group modulo p. It