Walter Heitler

Walter Heinrich Heitler (1904–1981) was a male physicist, university teacher, chemist, and philosopher. He held citizenship in the Weimar Republic and Switzerland, residing in Karlsruhe and dying in Zurich. Heitler worked in quantum mechanics, physics, quantum electrodynamics, and quantum field theory. He served as a professor at the University of Bristol and Leiden University.

He was educated at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München under doctoral advisors Karl Herzfeld and Arnold Sommerfeld. His doctoral students included Cécile DeWitt-Morette and Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh. Heitler was a member of the Royal Society and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He received the Max Planck Medal and the Marcel Benoist Prize, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry.

His works include *Elementary wave mechanics, with applications to quantum chemistry*, *The quantum theory of radiation*, *Die Frage nach dem Sinn der Evolution*, and *Über die Komplementarität von lebloser und lebender Materie*. He spoke German and English. He is recognized in the Royal Society collection.