Born in Vienna in 1887, Erwin Schrödinger was one of the pioneers of quantum physics and, as the founder of wave mechanics, is one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. After studying in Vienna, he took part in the First World War. In 1920, he married Annemarie Bertel, the daughter of the actor and court photographer Eduard Bertel. As a successor to Albert Einstein and Max von der Laue, he developed the famous Schrödinger equation in Zurich in 1925, and in 1933 was awarded the Nobel Prize ‘for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory’.

After his dismissal for ‘political unreliability’ in Graz, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin for the next 16 years. It was here that he delivered his lecture series ‘What is Life?’, published in 1944, with which he made a significant contribution to research into the physical structure of genetic information. Erwin Schrödinger finally returned to Austria in 1956 and died in Alpbach in 1961.

Arthur March, born in Brixen in 1891, studied physics and mathematics in Innsbruck, Munich and Vienna. It was at Friedrich Hasenöhrl’s lectures in Vienna that he met Erwin Schrödinger, with whom he remained lifelong friends. During his ten years of teaching at the Innsbruck girls’ secondary school, Arthur March qualified as a professor of theoretical physics and became an associate professor at the University of Innsbruck in 1926.

Like Erwin Schrödinger, Arthur March is considered one of the founding fathers of quantum physics. Erwin Schrödinger, who came to Oxford in 1933, arranged a two-year visiting professorship for Arthur March there. Erwin Schrödinger’s daughter Ruth was born in Oxford in 1934; her mother is Arthur March’s wife Hildegunde. After his return, Arthur March was appointed Full Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck. In 1939, Hilde March followed Erwin Schrödinger to Dublin with her daughter. They only returned to Innsbruck at the end of the war.

Having joined the resistance movement in the last months of the war, Arthur March became a member of the provisional Tyrolean government for a short time after the end of the war, before again devoting himself to science until his death in 1957.

The collections contain Erwin Schrödinger’s and Arthur March’s writings and notes on physics, documents relating to their university teaching, diverse correspondence and a large number of photographs and biographical documents. His numerous notebooks, for example, provide an insight into Erwin Schrödinger’s work. Both Arthur March and Erwin Schrödinger had literary ambitions. Erwin Schrödinger, who from an early age was interested in poetry, left behind transcriptions of poems and manuscripts of his own poems, some of which were published in 1949. With an excellent international network, he received offprints from all over the world, of which some are shown here, including personal dedications from the authors and annotations by Erwin Schrödinger. A collection of postcards and photographs tell of numerous journeys. Documents and photo albums of Schrödinger’s parents and ancestors have also been preserved. The biographical documents include identity documents such as the passport and the registration book of the University of Vienna.

Other archive records document the numerous honours Erwin Schrödinger received for his work, such as the Nobel Prize certificate from 1933, the certificate for an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art awarded after his return in 1957. The exhibits also include a bundle of newspaper cuttings with reports on Erwin Schrödinger and scientific topics.

Erwin Schrödinger’s father Rudolf was not only an entrepreneur and botanist, but also a talented artist. The Brenner-Archives hold a large number of his drawings and sketchbooks.

As can be seen from an extensive collection of photographic glass plates (most of them stereoscopic photographs) and photo albums from the late 1920s, Arthur March, whose father Josef ran a photo studio in Brixen, was himself a talented photographer, who recorded trips to Vienna, Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris and London, among other places, as well as excursions and hikes.

The memorabilia in the collection include Erwin Schrödinger’s pipe collection and spectacles.