What Quantum Mechanics Emerged From

Introduction
This physics course is going to be like no other physics course you have taken. In it we
will turn our attention to the physics of the very small. At the beginning, our job is not to
derive quantum mechanical results from well-established principles. This is what you do
in studying classical mechanics, electrodynamics and statistical physics. In the case of
quantum mechanics, however, the most basic theoretical tools wave functions,
Schroedingers equation, measurement theory and Hilbert space we need to invent.
Moreover, the things we invent need to be coherently part of a complete picture. Since
this is so different from how classical topics are developed, it is a good idea to understand
exactly what are the intellectual footings of this subject. To do this we will start with a
review of the status of physics in the late nineteenth century. At this time even though it
wasnt obvious, physics was poised to experience two revolutions in thought.
As the twentieth century was approaching, physics had succeeded in describing almost
everything that was commonly observed, or so it seemed. Classical mechanics could
predict celestial events and cannon-shell trajectories. Electrodynamics could predict
forces, fields and the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Statistical
mechanics discovered a way of understanding the notion of entropy that engineers
realized was central to explain the relationship between heat and work. It is interesting to
ask just how all this progress had been made. In the next several paragraphs, we will
examine how this occurred and set the stage for the revolutionary course that was about
to be undertaken leading to two revolutionary advances. The first of these two advances
was relativity theory originated by Einstein, Lorentz, Minkowski and others. The second
advance was the development of quantum mechanics by many physicists, including Bohr,
Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauli and Fermi. These two advances shook the
foundations of physics in profound, deep ways. But their origin couldnt have been
different. Relativity originated by purely analytical reasoning building upon what had
been done before, pointing out inconsistencies and devising a new approach to
understanding space and time to rectify these problems. The origin of the other advance,
namely quantum mechanics, came in fits and starts. Experimental results were obtained
that couldnt be swept under the rug and that necessitated a whole new way of
understanding mechanical and dynamical systems at the smallest scales of energy and
distance.
Classical Mechanics
Two hundred years before the end of the nineteenth century Newton formulated his
theory of mechanics in 1687. It followed a set of increasingly quantitative observations
of mechanical phenomena. The history of celestial mechanics is particularly interesting.
In the century preceding Newton, serious work on planetary motion was undertaken by
Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. By observing astronomical systems like comets,
planets and the moons of Jupiter, an experimental set of data was obtained. It became
possible to devise mathematical relations between the shape of an orbit and the time at
which a planet would be at a particular point in the orbit. At the same time, the operation
of the pendulum was studied and a description of simple harmonic motion was obtained,

particularly the dependence of the period on the length of the pendulum and the absence
of any dependence on the mass of the pendulum. At this point, there was not a precise
definition of the concept of force, although it was recognized that some agent was
required to induce the motion of planets that was observed.
To this scene, Newton introduced a revolutionary paradigm. He gave a precise definition
of force that was meaningful because of the action of the force. Moreover, he invented a
way to deal with continuously acting forces by developing the field of mathematical
analysis we now call calculus. His notion of force is really defined by F=ma, and the
notion of acceleration being the second time derivative of position required the invention
of new mathematics. So physical concepts like force and acceleration were understood
and quantified once new mathematical tools were developed. The theory is carefully
minimalist in nature. Only the necessary axioms are stated and concepts defined. Using
this theory, basically any mechanical observation was now able to be interpreted and
predicted, at least in principle. In particular, experiment provided evidence that
gravitational forces are proportional to the products of the masses of the two interacting
objects and that the force falls off like 1/r2, where r is the distance between the objects.
At this point, the invention was done and the field was ready for progress based on
deductive analysis. The distinction between conservative vs. non-conservative forces was
developed. This lead to the concept of potential energy and to the principle of
conservation of total energy. Similarly, the notions of angular momentum and torque
were developed. This lead to the law of conservation of angular momentum, which
states that the angular momentum of a system is unchanged if no torques act on it. Of
course, the law of conservation of linear momentum is really contained in Newtons law
of motion: if no forces act on a system there is no acceleration. Since acceleration is
dp/dt, the momentum must remain constant when F=0. More complex systems were also
discussed, such as rigid bodies and interconnected masses on springs. These more
complicated systems motivated the derivation of new theoretical tools, such as
Lagrangian dynamics and the principle of least action.
If one looks at the field of classical mechanics and asks the question at what point was a
revolutionary new concept introduced, the only point is Newtons law of motion.
Everything else was a preparation for this or came from careful analysis using the
concepts and mathematical tools Newton introduced. Underlying Newtons work,
however, is an unstated principle that is absolutely essential. This is the principle of
relativity. It states that the laws of physics should be the same in any inertial reference
frame. That is if two observers were looking at the same mechanical system, but they are
in constant velocity relative motion with respect to each other, they should both be able to
explain the mechanical process by using F=ma. The initial velocities measured in the
two reference frames would be different, but the forces would be the same and the rates
at which the momenta of the objects change would also be the same. This statement of
relativity in the context of Newtonian dynamics is now known as Galilean Relativity.

Classical Electrodynamics
Classical electrodynamics built on the infrastructure of Newtonian mechanics. New
physics was introduced by the observations of Cavendish and Coulomb who discovered
that charge came in two varieties and that the force between two charges, 1 and 2, was
proportional to q1*q2 and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating
them, 1/r2. Later Ampere studied the forces between two current segments. By
interpreting the current as charge elements moving with a velocity v in the wires holding
the currents, it is possible to summarize the total forces between charges as a sum of
electric forces plus magnetic forces. Along the way, it proved useful to introduce the
notion of electric and magnetic fields, E and B. In terms of them, the force acting on a
charged particle is just the Lorentz force or

F q EvB

(1)

This requires equations to prescribe how to calculate E and B. By including observations

of Faraday who described how time varying magnetic fields introduce electric fields, and
demanding self consistency in the final result, Maxwell was able to unify all of the field
equations of electromagnetism in his celebrated four equations. You saw them in integral
form in Physics 212, and they look like this:
Gausss Law

E dA dV

closed
surface

volume

Nobodys Law

B
dA 0

closed
surface

Faradays Law

B
E dl
dA

t
perimeter
open

(2a,b)

surface

Amperes Law

perimeter

B dl 0

open
surface

E
J 0
dA , (2c,d)
t

where (r ) is the charge density and J (r ) is the current density. While these two
quantities are sources for the fields, it is also true that in the absence of sources, the fields
can also exist in the form of electromagnetic waves. Note that 0 and 0 are coefficients
that relate the strength of a source, e.g. a charge density or a current density, to the
resulting field value, E or B.
The Wave Equation for Electromagnetic Radiation - Light
When Maxwell wrote these equations as the complete picture of electrodynamic fields,
included was a way to describe fields existing on their own, without any need for explicit
source terms. To see this we need only employ some simple calculus and two of
Maxwells equations, specifically Faradays Law (2b) and Amperes Law (2d). If we set
all charge and current sources to zero, those equations take on a symmetric (or more
precisely anti-symmetric) form. The left hand sides of those two equations can be
rewritten using Stokes Theorem. For example the source free Amperes Law looks like:


perimeter

B dl

open
surface

B dA 0 0

open

E
dA ,
t

(3)

surface

where we used Stokes Theorem

to go from the first expression to the second one

involving the curl of B, B . Since the last two expressions are surface integrals over
the same areas, it must be true that the integrands area equal. This is also the case for
Faradays Law, and we can use this to obtain Faradays and Amperes Laws expressed as
differential equations which makes them much easier to work with. We get:

B
E
t

B
B 0 0
t

(4a,b)

We can take the curl again of the E equation and the time derivative of the B
equation. The terms that result can be recombined in the form of a second order
differential equation for E(r,t):


2 E (r , t )
E (r , t ) 0 0
0
t 2
2

(5)

This is the Wave Equation (!) and its still linear in E, but now its second order in both
position, r, and time, t. While this looks somewhat forbidding, it actually is solved very
easily. To see this lets consider a case where there is no variation in E in the x and y
directions, only in the z direction. Then this equation simplifies to;

2 E ( z, t )
2 E ( z, t )
0
0 0
z 2
t 2

(6)

It is easy to show that solutions are of the form E ( z, t ) x f ( z ct ) g ( z ct ) , where

c 1 / 0 0 . So any function f(s) solves this equation as long as we use s z ct or
s z ct for the space and time dependence. Such a solution is known as a wave and
the equations above are known as wave equations since they are solved by such a form.
Historically, in the 19th century the French physicist Fizeau was the first to measure the
speed of light. Light travels very fast and this was a challenging experiment given the
technology available at that time. He did this experiment by utilizing a long optical path,
more than 8 km long. Using a very bright source of light and lenses to focus the light
along the path, he also introduced a multi-blade beam chopper which changed the
continuous beam of light into a series of pulses. The pulse length and time between
pulses was made to be the same by making the blades be as wide as the space between
the blades. By adjusting the rotation rate of the chopper he was able to adjust the pulse
length. For a certain chopper rotation rate he found that the blade had rotated to block the
return beam exactly. Knowing the frequency told him the pulse length and this was just
the time it took to travel back and forth on the 8 km path. This told him the speed at
which light traveled. He measured something slightly in excess of 3x108 m/s which is

close to the modern value of 2.997x108 m/s. Thus, at the time of Maxwells derivation of
the wave equation, which showed the existence of electromagnetic waves, it was known
that light traveled at this speed. The speed at which theory predicted EM waves should
travel was determined by quantities that could be measured in static experiments, not
involving waves or propagation of anything in time.
The theoretical speed,
c 1 / 0 0 , is exactly equal to what is measured as the speed of light propagation.
Thus this wave function is the classical E&M description of light. And it is a very good
description of light, at least until we get to the results of more difficult experiments that
exhibited the quantum nature of light.
It is also useful to note that the speed of light enters explicitly in the equations that
govern electrodynamic fields. There is no reference made to any reference frame in
this theory in which light should travel at a speed c. This means that if I am traveling in a
rocket at a fixed speed relative to you, and we both look at the same light wave, we must
both see it traveling at the same speed. Apparently, Maxwells equations have buried in
them the requirement that the speed of light be the same in all such reference frames.
This is very different from our nave expectation that the relative motion of two observers
looking at the same moving object should see a difference in speed given by their relative
velocities, i.e. that velocities would simply add. Such a result would be what classical
Newtonian mechanics would predict, but now with electrodynamics added to the picture
we find it necessary to reformulate Newtonian mechanics to find a way that light
propagation always occurs at this fixed speed, regardless of the inertial frame of reference
in which experiments and measurements are carried out.
Special Relativity
It was in this way that classical electrodynamics contained within its own form the seeds
that would ultimately lead to special relativity. Einstein took as the basic postulates of
this special relativistic mechanics that 1) the form of the laws of physics are the same in
all inertial reference frames (just as before), and 2) the speed of light in vacuum is always
c 1 / 0 0 (something completely new). With these assumptions and relatively simple

analysis he was able to show that moving clocks run slower than those stationary in our
inertial reference frame, that events that seem simultaneous to us are not simultaneous to
someone traveling at a constant velocity relative to us, and that spatial distances appear
smaller to an observer looking at distances measured in a moving inertial reference
frame. All of these results can be systematically developed into a new theory that
includes the space and time coordinates of events depending on the inertial reference
frame from which the event is observed. Space and time are part of a 4-dimensional
space-time that transforms space into time and vice versa much like the x and y-axes are
transformed into each other when a coordinate system is rotated around the z-axis. Of
course it is more complicated than simple spatial-temporal rotation, but that gives you an
idea of how foreign the concepts were that emerged from Einsteins two assumptions.
All of this inevitably followed from adding the constancy of the speed of light to ordinary
Galilean relativity. This new principle of relativity is called Special Relativity, and the
theory that followed showed how the equations of physics (including the constant speed
of light) are the same (invariant) in reference frames of constant motion. Using only

logic and the two postulates above, Einstein obtained a reformulation of mechanics that
included the constant speed of light at the expense of a more complicated space-time
compared to Newtonian mechanics.
Properties of Electromagnetic Radiation Interference and Diffraction
The wave function solution for light is useful to explore, because soon we will be finding
quantum mechanical wave functions for material particles, not just for light waves. We
discovered that if we consider propagation in the z-direction only, waves of the form f(s)
where s z ct or s z ct are solutions of the wave equation that emerges from
Maxwells equations. One particular useful type of wave is the so-called harmonic wave
given by f ( s) cos(ks ) . If we further restrict ourselves for simplicity of analysis to
waves traveling in the +z-direction, then s z ct . This is a sinusoidal wave
propagating in the z-direction at the speed of light, c. Such waves are called plane waves,
since anywhere in a plane perpendicular to the propagation direction the value of the
wave is the same.

One of the most interesting things that

we can investigate are the light wave
interference and diffraction. To think
about this lets consider a simplified
experiment in which a sinusoidal plane
wave is incident in the positive zdirection from the left and at z=0
encounters an opaque plane in which
two small holes have been drilled.
The holes are a distance d apart
centered at the origin. We will also
assume that the holes are smaller in
diameter than a wavelength of light.
On the other side of the opaque plane
only the two points, where the
openings are, provide electromagnetic
radiation to the rest of space. If one of
the holes is blocked, then light
emerges only from the other single
small hole. This light emerges into the
positive z half-space with a forward
cone distribution of intensity that is
quite broad. When both holes are
unblocked then the intensity at any
point in space is determined by waves
coming through both holes.
The
question is what do we see when both
holes are open and how is this
different from what we see when only
one of the two holes is open?

Perspective View

x
propagation direction

z
y

Top View

Y
Hole 1

L
S1(y)

d/2

Hole 2

ymin

S2(y)

zero intensity
high intensity

To answer these questions we must first understand how intensity of light related to
electric field value. For light the intensity is proportional to E2. To find out what the
intensity is at any particular place we must first add the E-field contribution from one
hole to the E-field contribution from the other hole to obtain the total E-field. Then we
must square this to obtain the intensity. Lets consider a plane (the detector plane)
parallel to the x-y plane at some positive z-position, say L units from the origin as in the
figure.. For points right along the z-axis the field contributions from the two holes will be
identical. Since the fields add, the intensity on axis with both holes open will be 4 times
the intensity we measure with only one hole open. This is known as constructive
interference. If we check out points along the y-axis in that plane we see something
remarkably different when both holes are open. There, the E-field contributions from the
two sources no longer have the same phase. In fact, for some points along the y-axis in
the detector plane the E-field contributions are exactly opposite in sign, giving zero total
E-field at such points. This is known as destructive interference. It is easy to calculate
the spatial separation of the intensity maxima. The first minimum occurs when the path
lengths from the two source points differ by /2. There, the waves will always be one
half a cycle out of phase with each other and therefore always add to zero.
In the figure the distance from the first hole to some point y-units in the detector plane is
denoted s1(y) and the distance from the second hole to the same point y is denoted s2(y).
The figure shows those values of ymin where exact cancellation occurs. To solve for them
we sum of the electric field from the holes 1 and 2 reaching points on the y-axis at the
screen

as

E ( y ) E1 cos( ks1 ) E 2 cos(ks 2 ) ,

s 2 y L2 y

d 2
2

where

s1 y L2 y d2

. The intensity, I(y), is given by I y

and

E 2 . To evaluate ymin

set the difference between s1 and s2 equal to (2n+1)/2 and solve for y; this will be ymin.
As long as L>>y we can make a linear approximation as follows:
2n 1

s2 s1 L2 y d2 L2 y d2
2

d 2
d 2

y
y
2
2
1
1
L 1 2
L 1 2

(7)
2
2

L
L

yd

L
We see that the ymin are given by ymin 2n 1 L 2d . In fact if you work out the
complete solution and calculate the intensity along the line we have been considering in
the detector plane you find that it is proportional to cos 2 qy , where q d L kd 2 L .

This ability to interfere that arises from multiple paths and the functional form of the
wave, as well as the fact that the intensity is proportional to the square of the field, is the
hallmark of wave phenomena. Notice that unlike a baseball, golf ball or any other
particle this classical wave is not located in any specific place, its intensity and
probability of its presence is distributed as E2.