# Story of Operators Creation/Anihilation

Hi everyone !

Could you tell me who is the inventor of these two operators (creation/anihilation) ?

Was he a mathematician ? A physicist ? or both ?

Who was the first to use them in Quantum Mechanics ?

It's hard to find this kind of information.

Thanks

Jonathan

## Answers and Replies

dx
Homework Helper
Gold Member
I think they were first introduced by Dirac.

There is quote in the book by Ryder in which I think Feynman intorduces annihilation/creation operators and then Dyson says to Feynman how the creation operator for the electron can create an electron out of the vacuum as that would violate charge conservation. :rofl:

So, it seems to me that the use of ladder operators as creation/annihilation operators was not standard in the early days of QM.

Dirac coined them, i think. It was used in his formulation on the positron, which initially he believed was the proton. Annihilaton becomes important for obvious reasons under his famous equation, since it describes the annihilation of inertial mass into pure gamma energy.

Thank you for all these answers !!!!