Schrodinger's Equation

reilly
How's that again?

marlon said:
No, once again: the Schrodinger equantion (SE) is independent of boundary conditions. The SE is a mere manifestation of E = p²/2m, translated into derivative operators working on a wavefunction.
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What? You might consider explaining this notion. Yours is quite an unusual approach.
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The solutions (ie the wavefunctions) are dependent on boundary conditions in order to assure their normalizability (so they are "physical" if you will) and their continuity at boundaries (like in the case of the potential-well)

**************

Whether boundary conditions are part of the SE is a somewhat of a problematical matter. If, for example, you use a Laplace Transform, then the boundary conditions become part of the transformed equation, as would be the case with a "one-sided Fourier transform" But, a regular FT does not explicitely contain boundary conditions. But, there are integrability conditions with the FT, which can be tantamount to Sommerfeld's Radiation Condition, a standard requirement for solutions as their spatial argument goes to infinity.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

reilly said:
No, once again: the Schrodinger equantion (SE) is independent of boundary conditions. The SE is a mere manifestation of E = p²/2m, translated into derivative operators working on a wavefunction.
*************************************
What? You might consider explaining this notion. Yours is quite an unusual approach.
**************************************************

Reilly Atkinson
I did. Check out my first post here.

This approach is not unusual since it is done in many introductory QM-textbooks like Bransden and Joachain and even in Zee's QFT in a Nutshell

regards
marlon

ps : check out the journal of Hans de Vries for that matter

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reilly
As Count Basie said, "One More Once" (April in Paris)

Hans de Vries said:
Of course we can derive Schrödinger's equation. It does not provide
anything new which can't be derived from more basic physics.
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(RA) Really?
*******************
We get the complex frequencies e-iEt/h by interpreting the Fourier Transform
over time as the energy spectrum.
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(RA)Why? Why do you say complex frequencies? If you insist on this, what do you do about exponential growth for exp(-i(i f)t = exp(ft), where f is real?
And, why invoke the energy spectrum? You might do a bit more explaining of this assumption
?

*************************************
I must apologize-- I have no idea how the equations got screwed up. If anyone can fix them, please let me know. Thanks, RA
***************************************************8

This gives us the derivatives:

from: ? = e-i2pft = e-i?t = e-iEt/h and: ??/?t = -i?e-i?t

it follows for the derivatives:

E? = ih ??/?t
E2? = -h2 ?2?/?t2

Step 2:
All we need to get the complementary p = h/? is using Special Relativity.
The (relativistic) deBroglie wave-length is caused purely by non-simultaneity
*****************************************************

How did you ever get this idea? It would help your case substantially if you would explain this in detail. Perhaps you might do so for the classic case of electron scattering from a crystal lattice. (Use neutrons if you prefer.)

*****************************************
The time-shift we see if we look at the particle from a reference frame in
which it is not at rest:

?(x1,t1) = e-iEt1
?(x2,t2) = e-iEt2

***********
(RA)Where are the x's?
*************

Only in the rest frame we have t1=t2 and the phase of ?(x,t) is constant in x.
After applying the Lorentz Transform ct' = ? (-ßx + ct) we get x mixed in:

?(x) = ei2px/? = eipx/h

It follows for the derivatives:

p? = -ih ??/?x
p2? = -h2 ?2?/?x2

Step 3:
Special Relativity would lead us straight to the Klein Gordon equation with:
E2 = p2c2 + m2c4, where m is the rest-mass. We need the non-relativistic
version however and we also need to include the potential energy:

E2 = p2c2 + (U + mc2)2

**************************
(RA) You are no doubt aware that in SR the idea of potential is quite problematical. Among other things, the LT now requires the momentum to have a term involving U. Recall also that the initial difficulty with the KG equation is that the wave function does not work as a probability amplitude. If I recall correctly, it was Pauli and Weiskopf who figured out what to do with the KG equation.

Why is the U in a relativistic approach valid? (Recall all the difficulties with gauge invariance, and the role of the Coulomb potential. Dirac has a very interesting approach to this issue in his QM book. Master physicist that he is, he does not derive the Schrodinger Eq.)

Also, how do you propose to deal with E&M? If you correctly assume that
E= h f, how do you get the equations of motion for the quantized e&M fields?
That is, what's the "Schrodinger Eq." for the E&M fields?

Now, here is another rub. Your expression for the wave function with U is incorrect, The correct formulation, found in virtually any text on QM or text on continuous groups is

W(x,t) = {exp (Integral (t1 to t) over time of -i(-d/dx*d/dx +U)} W(x,0)

(t1 is arbitrary, but must be <t.)

Granted this is excessively formal for many problems, but not for all -- as in magnetic resonance problems, and problems involving time dependent electromagnetic fields. (See, for example, Mandel and Wolf's Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics on the Bloch Equations and the Rabi Problem, which considers purely sinusoidal E&M fields interacting with an atom.

*************************************

We approximate the energy via:

E = (U + mc2) v( 1 + p2c2/(U+mc2)2 )
E ˜ (U + mc2) v( 1 + p2/(m2c2) )
E ˜ (U + mc2) (1 + p2/(2m2c2) )
E ˜ U + mc2 + p2/(2m)

This relation holds for all space-time points of the wave function ?(x,t):

E? = (U + mc2 + p2/(2m) )?

This now gives us the complete non relativistic equation:

ih ??/?t = (UA + mc2)? - h2/(2m) )?2?/?x2

Step 4:
We're now only a single step away from the Schrödinger's equation.
We define Schrödinger's wave function as:

?s = ei(U0 + mc2)t/h ?c

Where U0 is an arbitrary potential energy constant and ?c is the correct
version. This is a bit ugly but it turns out that it doesn't matter for the
probabilities coming out of the time-dependent version, since:

?s*?s = e-i(U0 + mc2)t/h ?c* . ei(U0 + mc2)t/h ?c = ?c*?c

And of course it doesn't the matter for the time independent version.
So after removing the rest mass energy term (which is what this accounts
to) we end up with the actual Schrödinger's equation:

ih ??/?t = U? - h2/(2m) )?2?/?x2

based only on the observation that E = hf
[/SIZE] [/FONT]

************ Nope. You have many other assumptions, the inclusion of the potential, only a time independent one, for example, and the assumption of an equation that is first order in the time -- a major issue.

If you did not already know about the SE, why pick linearity in the time derivative? Traditionally, wave equations are of second order in time. What's the reasoning behind the first order d/dt? (In case you are interested in this issue, I suggest you read about it in Bohm's classic QM book, available from Dover.)

I'm not suggesting that what you claim you are doing cannot be done. But by the time you actually recognize all your assumptions, you are very close to the canonical approach of standard QM -- which, after all, has worked quite well for 80 some years, particularly if you were to include the relationship between Poisson Brackets and commutation rules.

jtbell, dextercioby, and masuder are telling it like it is and has been from the origins of QM. If you want to take a revisionist approach, there's much convincing you have to do. Why not take a crack at writing your ideas up for The American Journal of Physics?

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

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reilly
I must apologize-- I have no idea how the equations got screwed up. If anyone can fix them, please let me know. Thanks, RA

reilly
Marlon-- I looked in Zee's book and could not find what you say is there. I'd be grateful if you could point out the appropriate sections in his book. I note that his first mention of the S.E, p3, refers to electron-proton scattering (the subject of my dissertation) which takes a bit more than messing around with spatial derivatives. Perhaps it's my inadequacies, but I fail to see how the Schrodinger Eq. emerges from your prescription?

Once a professor, always a professor.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

Hans de Vries
Gold Member
reilly said:
HdV: We get the complex frequencies e-iEt/h by interpreting the
Fourier Transform over time as the energy spectrum.

(RA)Why? Why do you say complex frequencies? If you insist on this, what do you do about exponential growth for exp(-i(i f)t = exp(ft), where f is real?
One word for both questions: Unitary Evolution. The argument can
only be imaginary if you want to have Unitary Evolution.
reilly said:
And, why invoke the energy spectrum? You might do a bit more explaining of this assumption
If one couples energies to specific frequencies like you do with E = hf then that's hardly avoidable.

reilly said:
Hdv:All we need to get the complementary p = h/? is using Special Relativity.
The (relativistic) deBroglie wave-length is caused purely by non-simultaneity

[RA]How did you ever get this idea? It would help your case substantially if you would explain this in detail. Perhaps you might do so for the classic case of electron scattering from a crystal lattice. (Use neutrons if you prefer.)
This is one of the most beautiful examples of the perfect coexistence of QM
and SR. It isn't shown by Schrodinger's Equation however since it puts the
rest-mass energy at zero. (This makes Schrodingers equation incompatible
with E = hf, since the rest mass energy is by far the dominant term )

The Journal Entry now explicitly derives p=h/λ from E=hf using the Lorentz
transform.
[PLAIN [Broken]
Deriving Schrodingers Equation from E = hf[/URL]

reilly said:
HdV:The time-shift we see if we look at the particle from a reference frame in
which it is not at rest:

?(x1,t1) = e-iEt1
?(x2,t2) = e-iEt2

(RA)Where are the x's?
This text was replaced by something clearer when I made the Journal entry.

reilly said:
HdV: Special Relativity would lead us straight to the Klein Gordon equation with:
E2 = p2c2 + m2c4, where m is the rest-mass. We need the non-relativistic
version however and we also need to include the potential energy:

E2 = p2c2 + (U + mc2)2

(RA) You are no doubt aware that in SR the idea of potential is quite problematical. Among other things, the LT now requires the momentum to have a term involving U. Recall also that the initial difficulty with the KG equation is that the wave function does not work as a probability amplitude. If I recall correctly, it was Pauli and Weiskopf who figured out what to do with the KG equation.

Why is the U in a relativistic approach valid? (Recall all the difficulties with gauge invariance, and the role of the Coulomb potential. Dirac has a very interesting approach to this issue in his QM book. Master physicist that he is, he does not derive the Schrodinger Eq.)
The EM potential energy enters relativistic QED in the electromagnetic four-
vector potential.

reilly said:
Also, how do you propose to deal with E&M? If you correctly assume that
E= h f, how do you get the equations of motion for the quantized e&M fields?
That is, what's the "Schrodinger Eq." for the E&M fields?

Now, here is another rub. Your expression for the wave function with U is incorrect, The correct formulation, found in virtually any text on QM or text on continuous groups is

W(x,t) = {exp (Integral (t1 to t) over time of -i(-d/dx*d/dx +U)} W(x,0)

(t1 is arbitrary, but must be <t.)

Granted this is excessively formal for many problems, but not for all -- as in magnetic resonance problems, and problems involving time dependent electromagnetic fields. (See, for example, Mandel and Wolf's Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics on the Bloch Equations and the Rabi Problem, which considers purely sinusoidal E&M fields interacting with an atom.
What I want to show here. And what is now better explained and corrected
in the Journal entry is that the potential as it is added in the Schroedinger
Equation is ultimately the result of what happens with the mass of the
particle in a potential field: It decreases as a result of the binding energy.

In the Journal entry I show how changing the mass energy from m0c to m0c + U
results in a potential energy term U added to up E in the Schrodinger equation

reilly said:
HdV: So after removing the rest mass energy term (which is what this accounts
to) we end up with the actual Schrödinger's equation:

ih ??/?t = U? - h2/(2m) )?2?/?x2

based only on the observation that E = hf

[RA] Nope. You have many other assumptions, the inclusion of the potential, only a time independent one, for example,
Again Special Relativity: "Time independent potentials" do not exist.
The potentials change in all but one reference frame.

reilly said:
and the assumption of an equation that is first order in the time -- a major issue.

If you did not already know about the SE, why pick linearity in the time derivative? Traditionally, wave equations are of second order in time. What's the reasoning behind the first order d/dt? (In case you are interested in this issue, I suggest you read about it in Bohm's classic QM book, available from Dover.)
Unitarity forces a 1st order in time derivative.

It's first order because E occurs linear in the non-relativistic approximation
E = U + 1/2 mv2. So it becomes first order via the derivative relations:

EΨ = iħ ∂Ψ/∂t
E2Ψ = -ħ22Ψ/∂t2

You may want extra proof that it is unitarian but the point of discussion was
that "Schrodingers equation can not be derived"

reilly said:
I'm not suggesting that what you claim you are doing cannot be done.
Well, that's at least a change of tone.

reilly said:
But by the time you actually recognize all your assumptions, you are very close to the canonical approach of standard QM -- which, after all, has worked quite well for 80 some years, particularly if you were to include the relationship between Poisson Brackets and commutation rules.

jtbell, dextercioby, and masuder are telling it like it is and has been from the origins of QM. If you want to take a revisionist approach, there's much convincing you have to do. Why not take a crack at writing your ideas up for The American Journal of Physics?

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson
I don't follow that last paragraph at all. There's absolutely nothing "revisionist"
in what I'm stating. People passed beyond Schrodinger's Equation 77 years ago.
I see that I'm in the middle of a discussion now which you have with Marlon.

Regards, Hans

[PLAIN [Broken]
Deriving Schrodingers Equation from E = hf[/URL]

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reilly
Hans -- You failed to deal with some issues I raised.

1.How are the relativistic view of simultaneity and the deBroglie wavelength related?

2. You did not deal with the well-known relation that the proper time -exponential for a wave function involves an integral over time.

3. Where does the idea of unitarity come from? It is hardly connected with deBroglie wavelengths -- it's a separate assumption, and is, in fact, very close to assuming the Schrodinger Eq. (See Dirac)

The non-relativistic Schrodinger Eq. is alive and well -- cf. atomic physics, theory of superconductivity, etc.

New ideas can be great. But, recall that Feynman's ideas were accepted only after heavy scrutiny -- partly in desperation due to Fermi and his grad students inability to deal with Schwinger's work, and the accessibility of Feynman's ideas.

If you think you are correct, then by all means get some peer review -- it helps clarify, and shows up weaknesses. And remember, at the professional level, physics is a contact sport.

Good luck and regards,
Reilly Atkinson

Hans de Vries
Gold Member
Dear Reilly,

First let me state that the sole purpose of the derivation in my Journal Entry
is to maybe shed a bit more light on the basics of QM using Special Relativity.
Just based on the same old basic laws of physics.

You make it sound if I'm pushing some new physics here and consequently
put an associated burden of proof on my shoulders. I gladly give back such a
burden to, in principle anybody interested, and ask to first come up with
anything in the Journal entry which is not based on mainstream physics.

I've taken great care here to comply. If I would want to push something new
here then I would surely make that very clear from the start. After all, the
title of this page: "Physics help and Math help, Physics Forums" reveals the
intended purpose of this site. This means that everybody here has an
obligation not to confuse hypothesis and new theories with mainstream
physics.

This is also true for instance for the "free playground" of "QM interpretations"
Free O.K. but it should be possible for every newcomer to differentiate
between mainstream interpretation speculations and alternative speculations.

Kind Regards, Hans

reilly said:
Hans -- You failed to deal with some issues I raised.

1.How are the relativistic view of simultaneity and the deBroglie wavelength related?

2. You did not deal with the well-known relation that the proper time -exponential for a wave function involves an integral over time.

3. Where does the idea of unitarity come from? It is hardly connected with deBroglie wavelengths -- it's a separate assumption, and is, in fact, very close to assuming the Schrodinger Eq. (See Dirac)

The non-relativistic Schrodinger Eq. is alive and well -- cf. atomic physics, theory of superconductivity, etc.

New ideas can be great. But, recall that Feynman's ideas were accepted only after heavy scrutiny -- partly in desperation due to Fermi and his grad students inability to deal with Schwinger's work, and the accessibility of Feynman's ideas.

If you think you are correct, then by all means get some peer review -- it helps clarify, and shows up weaknesses. And remember, at the professional level, physics is a contact sport.

Good luck and regards,
Reilly Atkinson

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reilly
Hans -- We can agree to disagree on some things about QM. I appreciate your calm demeanor in our discussion, behavior not always shown here. And, your new paper on lepton masses looks very interesting, and I look forward to reading it in detail.

Congratulations & best regards,
Reilly Atkinson

Deriving Schrodingers equation

Seems to be an old thread, but anyway:

Why not try something original:
Step outside QM and think classically.
An electron as an example would be a particle surrounded by virtual particles (electrons and positrons) and it would be anihilated by a vitual positrons only with the result that there would still be one more electron in the "soup" of particles than positrons, since positrons and electrons are created in pairs.

In this "soup" it is not possible to point out where the electron is or which one of the electrons that is real and which one would be virtual. In fact the location of the electron would only be possile to describe in probabilistic terms.
The "soup" would have some dynamic properties though and satisfy some kind of dynamic equation. As a simplification surely Schrodingers equation would be a good candidate to predict the probabilities of where interaction with the particle would be probable.

So roll up the sleves and try!

As a note, it does also give the notion that the property of a particle as we know it is at least as much a property of space as it is of the particle.

Gandalf said:
Why not try something original:
Step outside QM and think classically.
An electron as an example would be a particle surrounded by virtual particles (electrons and positrons) and it would be anihilated by a vitual positrons only with the result that there would still be one more electron in the "soup" of particles than positrons, since positrons and electrons are created in pairs.
In this "soup" it is not possible to point out where the electron is or which one of the electrons that is real and which one would be virtual. In fact the location of the electron would only be possile to describe in probabilistic terms.
The "soup" would have some dynamic properties though and satisfy some kind of dynamic equation. As a simplification surely Schrodingers equation would be a good candidate to predict the probabilities of where interaction with the particle would be probable.
So roll up the sleves and try!
As a note, it does also give the notion that the property of a particle as we know it is at least as much a property of space as it is of the particle.
Actually, that is the interpretation I discuss in my modest work http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0509044 . It is highly likely that it had been proposed earlier (and I would very much appreciate a reference), but it seems especially appropriate for real-valued charged fields discussed in my work.

I've seen the nonrelativistic time-dependent SE "derived" from the Fourier Integral Theorem and de'Broglie's relations (I saw this in the book Bohm wrote when he still believed in Copenhagen "Interpretation"-- "Quantum Theory")

It seemed perfectly fine a derivation to me, given that we accept that wave functions are an admissable device for explanations of empirical results, that de'Broglie's relations hold under those situations when wave functions are admissable for description, and that physically admissable wave functions can be synthesized by the Fourier integral.

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Following (Fourier transform) holds for any wave packet
$$\psi(x,t) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \phi(k) e^{i(kx-wt)} dk$$

Let us assume that matter is a kind of wave, so obeys this equation. Now, to relate the wave with quantities we all know and love, we assume (as an axiom) deBroglie hypotesis, and state following two:

$$E = \hbar w$$
$$p = \hbar k$$

and re-write the wave equation.

$$\psi(x,t) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi} \hbar} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \phi(p) e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}(px-Et)} dp$$

By merely taking partial derivatives of both sides

$$\frac{\partial \psi(x,t)}{\partial x} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi} \hbar} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} (\frac{\partial}{\partial x}) \phi(p) e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}(px-Et)} dp$$

We get
$$\frac{\partial \psi(x,t)}{\partial x} = \frac{i}{\hbar} p \psi(x,t)$$
or
$$\frac{\hbar}{i} \frac{\partial \psi(x,t)}{\partial x} = p \psi(x,t)$$

Doing the same steps with partial time derivative, we can derive this

$$-\frac{\hbar}{i} \frac{\partial \psi(x,t)}{\partial t} = E \psi(x,t)$$

And this's it. This's how we can extract energy and momentum from wave function. As we all know, it's the common way to abstract these equations from wave functions, and name rest operators and eigenvalues.

$$\frac{\hbar}{i} \frac{\partial }{\partial x} \Rightarrow \hat{p}$$
$$-\frac{\hbar}{i} \frac{\partial }{\partial t} \Rightarrow \hat{E}$$

Writing Schrödinger, or Klein-Gordon equation is straightforward here. For classical mechanics, we have
$$\frac{p^2}{2m} + V = E$$
Since we have to extract momentum and energy from wave function, we'd rather write

$$\frac{\hat{p}^2}{2m}\psi + V\psi = \hat{E}\psi$$
which is actually
$$\frac{p^2}{2m}\psi + V\psi = E\psi$$
$$\frac{p^2}{2m} + V = E$$

If we preferred the relativistic case, we'd have
$$(E^2 - {(pc)}^2 - {(m_0 c^2)}^2) = 0$$
and by our usual substitution
$$(\hat{E}^2 - {(\hat{p}c)}^2 - {(m_0 c^2)}^2)\psi(x,t) = 0$$

Like it?

But I think, this doesn't justifiy we can derieve Schrödinger equation. It turns out that the equations we borrowed from classical mechanics are a consequence of quantum theory, and actualy they are derived from QM.

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Yep that's it for a free particle.

I would ask what motivates acceptance of the deBroglie hypothesis in general?

Also can you demonstrate the other direction?-- Would this just be a statement in form to the classical laws but in terms of expectation values or what?

Oddly, I took a few courses on undergraduate QM but they didn't seem to help my understanding of it that much.

All I got was a bunch of statements of axioms and a bunch of mathematics, which while very nice and fun to do, isn't very insightful as to what's going on IMO. Alot of the books seem to lose sense of the historical context of the development of the subject, and they often don't motivate the material very strongly, and they often stay away from discussing what it means, or the statement of what it means isn't very clear..

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jtbell
Mentor
Divisionbyzer0 said:
would ask what motivates acceptance of the deBroglie hypothesis in general?
Experimental evidence. We can produce diffraction and interference effects in beams of electrons, neutrons, atoms, buckyballs... which are in agreement with wavelengths predicted by de Broglie's equation $\lambda = h / p$.

Hans de Vries said:
Of course we can derive Schrödinger's equation. It does not provide anything new which can't be derived from more basic physics.
I don't think the derivation given works for systems (as useful as it may be for single particles). And it does not get any nearer in deriving the true Schrodinger's equation:

$$\hat{H} |\psi(t)\rangle = i\hbar \frac{d}{d t} |\psi(t)\rangle$$

where

$$H(x_1,p_1,x_2,p_2...) -> \hat{H}(\hat{X_1}, \hat{P_1}, \hat{X_2}, \hat{P_2}...)$$

i.e. $\hat{H}$ is the same function of the position and momentum operators as the Hamiltonian for the corresponding classical system is of the position and momentum variables.

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When we see cause-effect relationships in nature we make up rules to predict the outcomes of certain events. The point is, sometimes you can choose which of these rules are "fundamental" or "not derivable" because if you pick two rules to be "fundamental" you can derive 3 others whereas if you pick a different set of 4 rules to be "fundamental" you might be able to "derive" a rule that other people consider "non-derivable." Some people would argue that you want to derive the most things from the least number of rules, but having more rules can sometimes be conceptually neater.

Analogously, if you call one of the SE "fundamental" then you don't quite have to do as much math as if you were to call other things "fundamental" and derive the SE. What is "fundamental" (i.e. what are your axioms), is somewhat subjective. However, you can still predict the outcome of any experiment no matter what you call "fundamental," so all this is just splitting hairs (I won't go into quantum uncertainty here, just know that i'm aware that sometimes you cannot predict exactly the outcome of an experiment in quantum mechanics). The point is nothing in the classical realm can explain quantum mechanics, and even thinking of things in quantum mechanics as "waves" is suspect since we are not talking about waves in the classical sense (matter waves don't in general obey classical wave equations).

So the SE is derivable if you don't choose it to be fundamental, but you might as well choose it to be fundamental and then it is, by definition, not derivable. It's simpler to choose the SE to not be derivable, so no one is lying to you when they say the SE is not derivable.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that QM cannot be "derived" from classical mechanics.

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Another thing to keep in mind is that it is not easy to derive the SE from other fundamental rules. So whenever you do find a derivation of the SE that looks too easy I would be very suspicious of logical and/or mathematical errors.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it is not easy to derive the SE from other fundamental rules. So whenever you do find a derivation of the SE that looks too easy I would be very suspicious of logical and/or mathematical errors.
This paper illustrate a simple derivation of the Schroedinger equation
Would you be very suspicious of logical and/or mathematical errors in it?

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121

Schroedinger's equation cannot be derived.It is accepted as a postulate.
I think thats wrong, i've seen how it is derived in few books... and the idea was to follow the common classical rules but adding the Debroglie idea (wave particle duality) it is easy to write down fermat principles and Maupertuis ones and equating them you pass through Helmotz equation arriving at the Schrodinger one...

if somebody want i think i have it somewhere...

bye marco

This paper illustrate a simple derivation of the Schroedinger equation
Would you be very suspicious of logical and/or mathematical errors in it?

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610121
Haha... "simple" is relative.

Also, this is not a "derivation" the way I meant it. That is to say, they're not using fundamental rules to prove new rules, they're "generalizing" and "approximating." It's safe to say that they probably wouldn't know how to generalize and approximate if they didn't know what the end result "should" be (the Schroedinger Equation). Back before quantum mechanics, if somebody used this kind of argument to justify a new "master equation," he would have been laughed at. The reason the Schroedinger equation was accepted was because of the empirical evidence for it, not because someone somehow derived it.

Not that this kind of thing doesn't have any value. And I'm not implying that they made any unacceptable logical leaps. I'm just saying that they didn't strictly prove Schroedinger's Equation using classical (or relativistic) principles... they had to extend, generalize, and approximate.

But the answer is yes. I would be very suspicious. Justifiably so.

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reilly
Absolutely correct; pieterenator has it exactly right. In the cited paper, there's nothing more than a plausibility argument, and a nice one at that.

There is no derivation of the Schrodinger E., nor of the 2nd Law of Newton, nor of the Conservation of anything,.....Indeed, to the uncritical, non-Humean eye, Noether's Thrm is a derivation of Conservation Laws -- but how could we even begin to examine all the assumptions that lurk behind Emily Noether, which must be done in order to give a sound evaluation of derivation vs. plausibility argument?

Who cares, if nothing can be derived? All we can do is make our best guess, and see what happens. This is as true for Newton as it is for Einstein, Heisenberg, et. all. Elegant as their work is, no one believed any of it until the work was successfully checked by experiment. Mathematicians use axioms; physicists use experiments.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

samalkhaiat
There is no derivation of the Schrodinger E., nor of the 2nd Law of Newton
If the chosen set of axioms does not contain Schrodinger/ Newton equations, then the formalisim should provide ways for DERIVING them from the axioms. Any failure means that your axioms contain a piece of garbage.
....Indeed, to the uncritical, non-Humean eye, Noether's Thrm is a derivation of Conservation Laws -- but how could we even begin to examine all the assumptions that lurk behind Emily Noether, which must be done in order to give a sound evaluation of derivation vs. plausibility argument?
Noether's theorem is a THEOREM! "given A, then B"; where A is the invariance under some Lie group, and B is a statement about a conserved quantity that can be DERIVED SYSTEMATICALLY from the action integral. If this is not a derivation, can you tell us what is it that we do when we play with equations and produce B from A?

Who cares, if nothing can be derived?
I do, because I lose my job if I cann't derive anything!

Mathematicians use axioms; physicists use experiments.
I am a physicist and I only care about a self-consistent set of axioms, I leave experiments for the more able peopel who work on them!

Regards

sam