- #1
HJ Farnsworth
- 128
- 1
Greetings,
Regarding operators, my understanding until today was that given the operators [itex]\hat{x}[/itex] for x and [itex]\hat{p}[/itex] for p, you could construct the operator corresponding to any classical quantity Q by expressing Q in terms of x and p, and then swapping x and p for [itex]\hat{x}[/itex] and [itex]\hat{p}[/itex], ie., Q = Q(x,p) [itex]\Rightarrow[/itex] [itex]\hat{Q}[/itex] = [itex]\hat{Q}[/itex]([itex]\hat{x}[/itex],[itex]\hat{p}[/itex]). I got this from Griffiths QM - in the 1st edition, he states this outright on page 16 (or at least, he says that to find <Q>, you do this direct substitution method and take the standard expectation value integral).
Today, however, my mind was blown - I was told that this is only true for expressions where x and p don't multiply each other. If they do, the fact that they don't commute results in not being able to simply substitute their operators, because there is an uncertainty term to worry about. The person who told me about this also told me to look up the terms "Weyl quantization" and "quantization ambiguity" for a more complete explanation.
Since Griffiths has pretty much been my QM bible up to this point, I tried to find a direct confirmation of what I was told today, but have so far failed. The stuff I've found on Weyl quantizations and quantization ambiguity is sparse, and also very abstract (some heavy abstract algebra, which I've only just started studying). I get the impression that Poisson brackets play into this subject a lot, but I have yet to find a simple intuitive explanation of what's going on.
So what I'm looking for is...
1. Confirmation or denial that the direct substitution method I learned in Griffiths is, in general, wrong.
2. A more general method to construct quantum operators from the equations for classical quantities.
3. For whatever general way operators are constructed, an intuitive explanation of why we are "allowed" to construct them from classical equations that way. If there is simply no way to explain this without delving into abstract algebra and Poisson brackets, please let me know.
Thanks for any help you can give.
-HJ Farnsworth
Regarding operators, my understanding until today was that given the operators [itex]\hat{x}[/itex] for x and [itex]\hat{p}[/itex] for p, you could construct the operator corresponding to any classical quantity Q by expressing Q in terms of x and p, and then swapping x and p for [itex]\hat{x}[/itex] and [itex]\hat{p}[/itex], ie., Q = Q(x,p) [itex]\Rightarrow[/itex] [itex]\hat{Q}[/itex] = [itex]\hat{Q}[/itex]([itex]\hat{x}[/itex],[itex]\hat{p}[/itex]). I got this from Griffiths QM - in the 1st edition, he states this outright on page 16 (or at least, he says that to find <Q>, you do this direct substitution method and take the standard expectation value integral).
Today, however, my mind was blown - I was told that this is only true for expressions where x and p don't multiply each other. If they do, the fact that they don't commute results in not being able to simply substitute their operators, because there is an uncertainty term to worry about. The person who told me about this also told me to look up the terms "Weyl quantization" and "quantization ambiguity" for a more complete explanation.
Since Griffiths has pretty much been my QM bible up to this point, I tried to find a direct confirmation of what I was told today, but have so far failed. The stuff I've found on Weyl quantizations and quantization ambiguity is sparse, and also very abstract (some heavy abstract algebra, which I've only just started studying). I get the impression that Poisson brackets play into this subject a lot, but I have yet to find a simple intuitive explanation of what's going on.
So what I'm looking for is...
1. Confirmation or denial that the direct substitution method I learned in Griffiths is, in general, wrong.
2. A more general method to construct quantum operators from the equations for classical quantities.
3. For whatever general way operators are constructed, an intuitive explanation of why we are "allowed" to construct them from classical equations that way. If there is simply no way to explain this without delving into abstract algebra and Poisson brackets, please let me know.
Thanks for any help you can give.
-HJ Farnsworth