Quantum Mechanics
This field of physics is only about a century old. It is based on the fact
that tiny pieces of matter act like waves and therefore transmit through
barriers, interfere, and diffract. Two important fundamental mathematical
formulations of quantum mechanics are:
- Heisenberg - Matrix mechanics
- Schrodinger - Wave mechanics
These are quite different mathematically but upon calculation of observables,
they give exactly the same results.
Here are a few of the more fundamental problems in Quantum mechanics:
- Free particle -
Schrodinger picture
solution
- Harmonic oscillator to square well - Spectrum changes when well
shape changes
- Sectional potentials - Scattering from a square box
- Hydrogen atom - application to real matter
- Spin - Spinors and how they project into our world
- Born-Oppenheimer approximation - Diatomic molecule electronic
wave functions
- Leonard-Jones and Morse potential - Carbon-Dioxide energy
spectrum
- WKB approximation - Airy functions emerge from locally linear
potential
- Perturbation theory - Changing a well known solution just
barely
back to Optics
go to Stat. Mech.
