Heisenberg and the early days of quantum mechanics (1976) [pdf]

9 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by adtac

2 Comments

sgdpk

29 minutes ago

Good read. It is also refreshing to read how Schrödinger came up with his equation even if it was not clear how to interpret it.

He was attempting to formalize de Broglie's "particles as waves" concept, which, according to the article, "could obtain the quantization rules of Niels Bohr and Sommerfeld by demanding that an integer number of waves should be fitted along a stationary orbit."

Schrödinger's equation put that claim on firm mathematical grounds. It gave correct predictions. But just what this new "wave function" was remained up to interpretation.