2

Many of the assumptions made by Heisenberg in his revolutionary 1925 paper could be justified in some form or another (although they are not by any means obvious), like for example his matrix multiplication rule which can be motivated by the Ritz combination principle, but one thing which I find very hard to accept is his assumption on the time evolution of his observables: $X_{mn} e^{2\pi i\nu_{nm}t}$. It seems very odd to me that one should formulate a dynamical theory by postulating a specific form for time evolution of the quantities of interest. Even more strange, is the fact that Born and Jordan also assumed this type of time dependence for the general theory of matrix mechanics for all types of quantum mechanical systems. So my question is, is there some way to make the above assumption less mysterious? Perhaps there was some direct experimental evidence (on atomic spectra) suggesting this particular type of time evolution?

Qmechanic
  • 201,751
Leonid
  • 395
  • He is reinterpreting periodic ("Bohr") orbits, so of course he uses that form. The framework of orbits to interpret Rydberg spectra had been around for quite a while. Heisenberg reinterpreted the orbits as matrix versions of orbitals. This is not a question about physics, but, rather history of science. It is being asked quite frequently. – Cosmas Zachos Feb 06 '22 at 17:19
  • 4
    I’m voting to close this question because it's s question about the history of physics, not physics itself. – Gert Feb 06 '22 at 18:07
  • @CosmasZachos: True, but then again we have a general way of describing periodic classical motion (via fourier series/harmonics of a fundamental frequency), but the frequencies in the atomic spectra were not of that form at all so it seems to me one can't just group together all periodic quantum systems like one does for classical systems. Apart from that, Born and Jordan generalized this time dependence postulate so that it holds for all quantum systems, which is a huge leap of logic from where I stand. – Leonid Feb 06 '22 at 18:17
  • I don't see the "leap of logic". I assume you are comfortable with the mainstream tale. Recall H. is applying the oscillator to outer Rydberg states. This site and HSMSE are choking with the answer. Due diligence. – Cosmas Zachos Feb 06 '22 at 18:51
  • 2
    Further to @Gert's close vote, perhaps the mods could migrate this one over to [hsm.se]. – Michael Seifert Feb 07 '22 at 14:26
  • I would like to move this question to History of Science and Mathematics if possible. – Leonid Feb 07 '22 at 16:42
  • I Don't think It's possible to migrate it to HSM cause there's only MSE and PSE meta in flagging list. So better reposting the question there and remove it from here – Billy Istiak Feb 08 '22 at 06:04

0 Answers0