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Constructing Quantum Mechanics

10.1093/oso/9780198845478.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Anthony Duncan ◽

Michel Janssen

Keyword(s):

Quantum Mechanics ◽

Quantum Theory ◽

Stark Effect ◽

Zeeman Effect ◽

Black Body ◽

Black Body Radiation ◽

Wave Mechanics ◽

Specific Heats ◽

Old Quantum Theory ◽

Upper Level

This is the first of two volumes on the genesis of quantum mechanics. It covers the key developments in the period 1900–1923 that provided the scaffold on which the arch of modern quantum mechanics was built in the period 1923–1927 (covered in the second volume). After tracing the early contributions by Planck, Einstein, and Bohr to the theories of black‐body radiation, specific heats, and spectroscopy, all showing the need for drastic changes to the physics of their day, the book tackles the efforts by Sommerfeld and others to provide a new theory, now known as the old quantum theory. After some striking initial successes (explaining the fine structure of hydrogen, X‐ray spectra, and the Stark effect), the old quantum theory ran into serious difficulties (failing to provide consistent models for helium and the Zeeman effect) and eventually gave way to matrix and wave mechanics. Constructing Quantum Mechanics is based on the best and latest scholarship in the field, to which the authors have made significant contributions themselves. It breaks new ground, especially in its treatment of the work of Sommerfeld and his associates, but also offers new perspectives on classic papers by Planck, Einstein, and Bohr. Throughout the book, the authors provide detailed reconstructions (at the level of an upper‐level undergraduate physics course) of the cental arguments and derivations of the physicists involved. All in all, Constructing Quantum Mechanics promises to take the place of older books as the standard source on the genesis of quantum mechanics.

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C. Wave Mechanics and Half-Odd-Integral Quantisation

Master of Modern Physics ◽

10.1515/9780691219523-011 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 151-162

Keyword(s):

Wave Mechanics

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Macroscopic Virtual Particles Exist

Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A ◽

10.1515/zna-2019-0020 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 74 (5) ◽

pp. 363-366

Author(s):

Günter Nimtz

Keyword(s):

Quantum Electrodynamics ◽

Quantum Mechanical ◽

Wave Mechanics ◽

Virtual Particles

AbstractVirtual particles are expected to occur in microscopic processes, as they are introduced, for instance, by Feynman in quantum electrodynamics as photons performing in an unknown way in the interaction between two electrons. This note describes macroscopic virtual particles as they appear in classical evanescent modes and in quantum mechanical tunnelling particles. Remarkably, these large virtual particles are present in wave mechanics of elastic, electromagnetic, and Schrödinger fields.

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