[1] Jordan joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but did not follow the Deutsche Physik movement, which at the time rejected quantum physics developed by Albert Einstein and other Jewish physicists.

The family settled in Hannover after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and at some stage changed their name from Jorda to Jordan.

The University of Göttingen, his destination in 1923, was then at the very zenith of its powers in mathematics and the physical sciences, such as under the guidance of mathematician David Hilbert and the physicist Arnold Sommerfeld.

At Göttingen Jordan became an assistant to the mathematician Richard Courant for a time, and then he studied physics under Max Born and heredity under geneticist and race scientist Alfred Kühn[4] for his doctorate.

In 1926, Niels Bohr offered to pay to treat it, and on the advice of Wilhelm Lenz, Jordan sought treatment at Alfred Adler's clinic in Vienna.

[8] He went on to pioneer early quantum field theory[8] before largely switching his focus to cosmology before World War II.

Jordan seemed to hope that he could influence the new regime; one of his projects was attempting to convince the Nazis that modern physics developed as represented by Einstein and especially the new Copenhagen brand of quantum theory could be the antidote to the "materialism of the Bolsheviks".

His suggestions were ignored because he was considered "politically unreliable", probably because of his past associations with Jews (in particular: Born, Richard Courant and Wolfgang Pauli) and the so-called "Jewish physics".

"[3] Had Jordan not joined the Nazi party, it is conceivable that he could have won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with Max Born.

[15][16] Wolfgang Pauli declared Jordan to be "rehabilitated" to the West German authorities some time after the war, allowing him to regain academic employment after a two-year period.

In 1957 Jordan supported the arming of the Bundeswehr with tactical nuclear weapons by the Adenauer government, while the Göttingen Eighteen (a group of German physicists which included Born and Heisenberg) issued the Göttinger Manifest in protest.