# Derivation of the SE

by Thrice
Tags: derivation
 P: 233 A visiting professor today made the comment that you can't really derive the SE. Curious what you guys think. I've seen handwaving arguments using wave packets & I suppose more formal arguments using some time evolution operator. It should be possible to get it from first principles, right?
 P: 1,136 I was sure I'd seen a derivation before, here's two, I am by no means savy enough to determine if these are correct.
Mentor
P: 11,862
The first link sets off a couple of warning bells in my head. First, it's published by the Fondation Louis de Broglie. Somebody here was asking about it not too long ago, and the link they gave as an example of what they published looked pretty "far out" to me. I suspect that the FLdB has an "open minded" policy that encourages submission of non-mainstream material. Second, although I haven't read very far yet, the author starts out by claiming that his derivation renders unnecessary the probabilistic interpretation of the wave function. Definitely non-mainstream!

The second link shows a derivation not of the SE itself, but a "quaternion analog" to the SE. At the end author Doug Sweetser notes,

 Quote by Sweetser Any attempt to shift the meaning of an equation as central to modern physics had first be able to regenerate all of its results. I believe that the quaternion analog to Schrödinger equation under the listed constraints will do the task. These is an immense amount of work needed to see as the constraints are relaxed, whether the quaternion differential equations will behave better.
So this is also a non-mainstream approach, and even the author doesn't know yet whether it's going to work out.

 P: 932 Derivation of the SE Lots of analogies can be made etc. but ultimately the Schrodinger equation in its most general form must be assumed to hold true.
 P: 2,068 As well we could discuss about derivation of classical theory. You cannot derive quantum mechanics, similarly as you cannot derive Newton's mechanics either. You just have to accept Newton's laws. Or on the other hand, if you consider some heuristic arguments being derivation of Newton's laws, in the same spirit you can also derive quantum mechanics somehow. The question is ultimately about what we mean by "deriving" something.
P: 233
 Quote by masudr Lots of analogies can be made etc. but ultimately the Schrodinger equation in its most general form must be assumed to hold true.
 Quote by jostpuur The question is ultimately about what we mean by "deriving" something.
Well you two know how to "derive" SR from invariance of c & the relativity principle. I assumed that's the only thing he could have meant because otherwise (as jostpuur said) the statement is trivially true.

I guess I was thinking something like this.
Mentor
P: 11,862
 Quote by Thrice It should be possible to get it from first principles, right?
But which first principles? That's the key question. In order to derive something, you have to start with something else that's given as true.

I have not studied this in depth myself, but I'm sure there are others here who have done so. I would not be surprised to find that there are a variety of ways to "axiomatize" QM, and that some of them assume the SE as a postulate and some of them don't.

With relativity, people usually start from the postulates of the Principle of Relativity and the invariance of $c$, because that's how Einstein did it in his original 1905 paper, which is the starting point for modern relativity theory.

But there is no similar single "starting point" for QM, historically speaking. Schrödinger himself came up with his equation by making an analogy between mechanics and optics, but this is more of an "inspiration" or "motivation" for the SE than a proper "derivation" of it. For some more details, see

P: 233
 Quote by jtbell But which first principles?
Any, right? Any (reasonable) set leading to the SE should be enough to reject the general premise that "The SE cannot be derived," because this premise implies that there are no such axioms.
 Sci Advisor HW Helper P: 11,947 There's no derivation in an axiomatical approach. It's part of the axioms. However, another approach could provide a derivation.
P: 86
 Quote by Thrice A visiting professor today made the comment that you can't really derive the SE. Curious what you guys think. I've seen handwaving arguments using wave packets & I suppose more formal arguments using some time evolution operator. It should be possible to get it from first principles, right?
Quantum Mechanic is a theory with its own axiomatic. As any serios theory has its own axiomatic. There is different interpretations of QM. Any interpretation has own axioms.
Copengagen intepretation. It is almost the official famous interpretation. In this interpretation the Schro"dinger equation is one of postulates. In other words in this interpretation SE is one of axioms Quantum Mechanics. And it is the most of axioms. In addition the source of Planck constant cann't find nobody. And Planck constant is in SE and it is very important part of SE.
Other interpretations of Quantum Mechanic, De-Brougle-Bohm for example, as the target to derive SE. In this interpretation SE is follow from classical mechanics equation named Jacobi-Hamilton equation. But from classical physics we cann't to derive SE. We are need others postulates (axioms) for this. And Planck constant we cann't derive in this case too.
 P: 701 the schrodinger equation can be derived by assuming nothing more than (a) that energy is quantized and (b) a complex wavefunction describes everything about the system. The derivation follows from applying classical dynamics to these assumptions.
P: 233
 Quote by dextercioby There's no derivation in an axiomatical approach. It's part of the axioms.
But how is that different from any other derivation? Results are always implied by the axioms preceeding them. I'd appreciate an example of some other approach.
HW Helper
P: 11,947
 Quote by quetzalcoatl9 the schrodinger equation can be derived by assuming nothing more than (a) that energy is quantized and (b) a complex wavefunction describes everything about the system. The derivation follows from applying classical dynamics to these assumptions.

Is that so ? Can you prove your statement ?
P: 701
 Quote by dextercioby Is that so ? Can you prove your statement ?

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121
 P: 701 ok, i guess we also need either the de Broglie relation or the relativistic energy-momentum equation (so it is not purely classical)
P: 86
 Quote by quetzalcoatl9 yes, please see: http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121
In http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121 authors change the electric field E to Psi-function. It is formal operation.
In Schrödinger paper
<<An undulatory theory of the mechanics of atoms and molecules
E. Schrödinger
Phys. Rev. 28, 1049-1070 (1926)>>
he derive his equation from wave equation for the wave-function but this equation he postulated. Here Schrödinger appear that SE similar to wave equation.
There is another way. But it is alternative to official Copenhaven Interpretation. You can read here
<<Derivation of the Schrödinger equation from Newtonian mechanics
E. Nelson
Phys. Rev. 150, 1079-1085 (1966)>> It is derivation is named de-Broile-Bohm Interpretation. But in this case it is used another axioms not official Copenhagen’s and it is not Quantum Mechanic in the ordinary sense. More right it is the stochastic interpretation because in this axioms used unknown random fields postulate.
I'm like very much the derivation SE from Jacobi-Hamilton equation. But it is not ideal too.
P: 701
 Quote by cartuz In http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121 authors change the electric field E to Psi-function. It is formal operation. In Schrödinger paper <> he derive his equation from wave equation for the wave-function but this equation he postulated. Here Schrödinger appear that SE similar to wave equation. There is another way. But it is alternative to official Copenhaven Interpretation. You can read here <> It is derivation is named de-Broile-Bohm Interpretation. But in this case it is used another axioms not official Copenhagen’s and it is not Quantum Mechanic in the ordinary sense. More right it is the stochastic interpretation because in this axioms used unknown random fields postulate. I'm like very much the derivation SE from Jacobi-Hamilton equation. But it is not ideal too.

yes, one of the assumptions that i stated is the assumption that the system can be completely described by a complex wavefunction. i guess we also need to assume that it is normalized, but this is also done in classical electrodynamics.

the "big leap" needed is quantization of energy appled to SR.
 Sci Advisor P: 1,082 Physics is, after all, about natural phenomena, and test for correctness is almost always based on experiments, on empirical evidence. That is, QM, Newton, Einstein, and most other physics describes the world outside of us. If we neglect the variability of necessarily subjective observations, we find common agreement on the basic phenomena of classical physics. Unless I'm badly mistaken, there is absolutely no way for us to deduce the necessity of what we perceive from any formal argument. That is, the phenomena of Nature are given. The physicist's job is to make sense of the observed and predicted phenomena that are part of the common human perceptual experience. Can this be done axiomatically? I very seriously doubt it. With a slight of hand here, and finesse there, some folks can use a sophisticated scam approach to derive the Schrodinger Eq.. But why bother, unless you can before the fact demonstrate that atomic spectra, in detail, can be derived from first principles, or show that electron diffraction is necessary, and so on. And so it's the crazy phenomena of spectra and particle diffraction, spin, Bose and Fermi statistics, radioactive decay, and so on, that drive QM. The proof of the pudding, is the extraordinary success of the SE, or of Newton, or of Einstein when used to describe and predict natural phenomena. Regards, Reilly Atkinson Note that energy is generally not quantized for free particles, as in scattering theory for example.

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