Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Boltzmann's influence on Schrödinger
- 3 Schrödinger's original interpretation of the Schrödinger equation: a rescue attempt
- 4 Are there quantum jumps?
- 5 Square root of minus one, complex phases and Erwin Schrödinger
- 6 Consequences of the Schrödinger equation for atomic and molecular physics
- 7 Molecular dynamics: from H+H2 to biomolecules
- 8 Orbital presentation of chemical reactions
- 9 Quantum chemistry
- 10 Eamon de Valera, Erwin Schrödinger and the Dublin Institute
- 11 Do bosons condense?
- 12 Schrödinger's nonlinear optics
- 13 Schrödinger's unified field theory seen 40 years later
- 14 The Schrödinger equation of the Universe
- 15 Overview of particle physics
- 16 Gauge fields, topological defects and cosmology
- 17 Quantum theory and astronomy
- 18 Schrödinger's contributions to chemistry and biology
- 19 Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? and molecular biology
- Index
3 - Schrödinger's original interpretation of the Schrödinger equation: a rescue attempt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Boltzmann's influence on Schrödinger
- 3 Schrödinger's original interpretation of the Schrödinger equation: a rescue attempt
- 4 Are there quantum jumps?
- 5 Square root of minus one, complex phases and Erwin Schrödinger
- 6 Consequences of the Schrödinger equation for atomic and molecular physics
- 7 Molecular dynamics: from H+H2 to biomolecules
- 8 Orbital presentation of chemical reactions
- 9 Quantum chemistry
- 10 Eamon de Valera, Erwin Schrödinger and the Dublin Institute
- 11 Do bosons condense?
- 12 Schrödinger's nonlinear optics
- 13 Schrödinger's unified field theory seen 40 years later
- 14 The Schrödinger equation of the Universe
- 15 Overview of particle physics
- 16 Gauge fields, topological defects and cosmology
- 17 Quantum theory and astronomy
- 18 Schrödinger's contributions to chemistry and biology
- 19 Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? and molecular biology
- Index
Summary
Schrödinger's original interpretation of the Schrödinger equation had many attractive features lost in later interpretations of the quantum theory. But that interpretation runs into a number of formidable well-known and not so well-known objections. I argue, following the methodological precepts of Paul Feyerabend, that we need not regard any of these objections as fatal, provided we are prepared to opt for a number of bold and rather radical mathematical and theoretical conjectures. These would amount jointly to the conjecture that a fully time-symmetric consistently classically interpreted non-second-quantized analogue of existing quantum field theory would (pace Jaynes, Tomonaga, Bell, and others) ultimately prove predictively equivalent to orthodox second-quantized theory.
Introduction
Schrödinger initially proposed his equation as a classical theory of matter waves directly analogous to Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic waves. |ψ|2 represented a classical charge density functioning in the ordinary classical way as a source of electromagnetic fields, and acted on by these fields via the potential term in the matter–wave equation. This is a theory of coupled classical fields with no probabilities entering into its interpretation, and from a modern point of view it can be thought of in terms of the coupled Dirac and Maxwell fields, without second-quantization and interpreted in a purely classical manner.
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- SchrödingerCentenary Celebration of a Polymath, pp. 16 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987
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