Wave Mechanics and the Problem of Interpretation

Abstract

Born’s operator formulation opened up a host of new avenues, which he clearly intended to explore in further publications.¹ But before he could do this, events took a dramatic turn with the advent of Schrödinger’s wave mechanics.² In his first communication of this new theory, submitted at the end of January, Schrödinger transformed the time-independent Hamiltonian partial differential equation of motion,

$$H\left({q,p = {{\partial S} \over {\partial q}}} \right) = E$$

((1))

into a form that could (at least for the one-electron problem with constant mass) be expressed as a quadratic form of a new unknown ψ, S = k log ψ, and of its derive ∂ψ/∂ψq, set equal to zero:

$$F = H\left({q,{k \over \psi},{{\partial \psi} \over {\partial q}}} \right) - E = 0.$$

((2))