Europe: Swiss physicist Felix Bloch recounted the story of how wave mechanics came to be

[baseline bum]

One day, Nobel laureate Peter Debye said, "Schrödinger, you are not working right now on very important problems anyway. Why don't you tell us some time about that thesis of de Broglie, which seems to have attracted some attention."

And so Schrödinger did. He gave a talk about how French physicist Louis de Broglie postulated that matter also has wave properties, but Debye dismissed the talk as "childish," pointing out that "to deal properly with waves, one had to have a wave equation."

Schrödinger thought about it and soon after left his wife for a two-and-a-half-week vacation at a villa in the Swiss Alps. He took only de Broglie's thesis, an old Viennese girlfriend (whose iden y remains a mystery until today), and two pearls. After, uh, rigorously "consulting" with the girlfriend for inspiration, Schrödinger shoved the pearls into his ears to get himself some peace and quiet, and set to work on wave mechanics.

By the next talk, Schrödinger said, "My colleague Debye suggested that one should have a wave equation; well, I have found one!"

Years later, Bloch approached Debye and asked him about the encounter. Debye claimed that he had forgotten, but Bloch thought that he was regretful that he goaded Schrödinger into working out the formula rather than doing it himself. Regardless, Debye turned to Bloch and said, "Well, wasn't I right?"

[baseline bum]

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

One day, Nobel laureate Peter Debye said, "Schrödinger, you are not working right now on very important problems anyway. Why don't you tell us some time about that thesis of de Broglie, which seems to have attracted some attention."

And so Schrödinger did. He gave a talk about how French physicist Louis de Broglie postulated that matter also has wave properties, but Debye dismissed the talk as "childish," pointing out that "to deal properly with waves, one had to have a wave equation."

Schrödinger thought about it and soon after left his wife for a two-and-a-half-week vacation at a villa in the Swiss Alps. He took only de Broglie's thesis, an old Viennese girlfriend (whose iden y remains a mystery until today), and two pearls. After, uh, rigorously "consulting" with the girlfriend for inspiration, Schrödinger shoved the pearls into his ears to get himself some peace and quiet, and set to work on wave mechanics.

By the next talk, Schrödinger said, "My colleague Debye suggested that one should have a wave equation; well, I have found one!"

Years later, Bloch approached Debye and asked him about the encounter. Debye claimed that he had forgotten, but Bloch thought that he was regretful that he goaded Schrödinger into working out the formula rather than doing it himself. Regardless, Debye turned to Bloch and said, "Well, wasn't I right?"

LaPlace was proposing heat propagation through solids in terms of wave functions about 150 years before Schroedinger. Lagrange formalized much of it. The french had much more than postulated wave properties in matter.

[DMC]

LaPlace was proposing heat propagation through solids in terms of wave functions about 150 years before Schroedinger. Lagrange formalized much of it. The french had much more than postulated wave properties in matter.

So they gave up on that as well.

[spurraider21]

[Agloco]

Da fuq BB?

[AaronY]

Oh, ok

[Franklin]

you gave your account to Bump, BB?

[baseline bum]

Da fuq BB?

Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different.

The solution of the difficulty is that the two mental pictures which experiment lead us to form - the one of the particles, the other of the waves - are both incomplete and have only the validity of analogies which are accurate only in limiting cases.

Light and matter are both single en ies, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language. It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of describing the processes occurring within the atoms, for, as has been remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life, and these consist only of processes involving exceedingly large numbers of atoms. Furthermore, it is very difficult to modify our language so that it will be able to describe these atomic processes, for words can only describe things of which we can form mental pictures, and this ability, too, is a result of daily experience. Fortunately, mathematics is not subject to this limitation, and it has been possible to invent a mathematical scheme - the quantum theory - which seems entirely adequate for the treatment of atomic processes; for visualization, however, we must content ourselves with two incomplete analogies - the wave picture and the corpuscular picture.

This application of the concept of statistical laws was finally formulated in the second half of the last century as the so-called statistical mechanics. In this theory, which is based on Newton's mechanics, the consequences that spring from an incomplete knowledge of a complicated mechanical system are investigated. Thus in principle it is not a renunciation of determinism. The incomplete knowledge of a system must be an essential part of every formulation in quantum theory. Quantum theoretical laws must be of a statistical kind. .. This state of affairs is best described by saying that all particles are basically nothing but different stationary states of one and the same stuff. Thus even the three basic building-stones have become reduced to a single one. There is only one kind of matter but it can exist in different discrete stationary conditions.

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms .. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language. Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms… But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language.

The most difficult problem… concerning the use of the language arises in quantum theory. Here we have at first no simple guide for correlating the mathematical symbols with concepts of ordinary language: and the only thing we know from the start is the fact that our common concepts cannot be applied o the structure of the atoms.

The violent reaction on the recent development of modern physics can only be understood when one realizes that here the foundations of physics have started moving; and that this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cut from science.

[Infinite_limit]

<-------- Studying Classical Physics

- Galileo was a Pimp
- Newton took it another level
- Ancient scientist were cheeky


First 3 weeks did Kinematics. Doing 2+ Dimensional motion now.

[baseline bum]

<-------- Studying Classical Physics

- Galileo was a Pimp
- Newton took it another level
- Ancient scientist were cheeky


First 3 weeks did Kinematics. Doing 2+ Dimensional motion now.

Check this book son. Can't go wrong at $4 used + $4 shipping. Way better explanations than the standards like Serway, Giancoli, and so on. The problems are really difficult though (harder than Taylor's junior level mechanics book, for example). If you like mechanics it's a fun book to read. Great explanation of Newton's laws as empirical results and not just some formula you quote.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...condition=used