Schrödinger Erwin (1887–1961), Austrian physicist best known for five papers published in 1926, in which he discovered the Schrödinger wave equation and created modern wave mechanics. For this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics (shared with Paul Dirac) in 1933. Like Einstein, Schrödinger was a resolute but ultimately unsuccessful critic of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger defended the view (which he derived from Boltzmann) that theories should give a picture, continuous in space and time, of the real processes that produce observable phenomena. Schrödinger’s realistic philosophy of science played an important role in his discovery of wave mechanics. Although his physical interpretation of the psi function was soon abandoned, his approach to quantum mechanics survives in the theories of Louis de Broglie and David Bohm. See also QUANTUM MECHANIC. M.C.