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LECTURE 33
     goals and outline

lecture title

    Particles are Waves: deBroglie, Schrödinger, and Born

text pages

    Ch 16 and 17, pp 200-213 and 214-218.

lecture goals

  • Introduce the apparently contradictory "duality" of particles and waves. We already know (the wave) light is particles called photons. In this lecture (particles) electrons are seen to be waves. In fact we demonstrate electron diffraction through a crystal.
  • Introduce more founders of quantum mechanics, deBroglie (Nobel 1929), Schrödinger (Nobel 1933, shared with Dirac), and Born (Nobel 1954).
  • Learn about Schrödinger's wave equation for the "wave function" Psi of a particle.
  • Learn Born's probability interpretation of Psi-squared, which Einstein could never swallow.

outline of lecture

    1. DeBroglie: the Electron is a Wave

    2. Schrödinger: an Equation for the Electron Wave

    3. Born: the Wave Function is a Probability Amplitude

quotes

God does not play dice.

-- Albert Einstein

If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice.

-- Max Born

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Please email any questions, comments, or suggestions to Professor Bernice Durand, bdurand@theory3.physics.wisc.edu.

Revised November 30, 1997.


Content © 1997, Bernice Durand
Images and layout © 1997, Shane Hamilton