The Quantum Physicists And An Introduction To Their Physics PDF
Preview The Quantum Physicists And An Introduction To Their Physics
The Quantum Physicists THE QUANTUM PHYSICISTS And an Introduction to Their Physics WILLIAM H. CROPPER Professorof Chemistry St.Lawrence University New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS London Toronto 1970 Copyrighte 1970by OxfordUniversityPress,Inc. LibraryofCongress CatalogueCard Number:73:83037 Printedin the UnitedStates ofAmerica To My Parents Preface Great scientists tend to have a ghostlike presence in modern scien tific literature. Though their names appearon thousands ofpages in hundreds of books, they are not attached to human portraits, but to equations, constants, effects, and experiments. Erwin Schrodinger, for example, is remembered because the Schrodinger equation is firmly established in the methods of modern physics. His name is before us, correctly associated with his work, but disconnected from the man and his world. This is a practice appropriate for'the specializedarticles ofjournalsandmonographs.Sciencehas aformal structure which can be separated from personalities. To use the theory built around Schrodinger's equation one need not know anything about the complex and eloquent man who invented it. Is it wise, though, to think that science begins and ends with its formal procedures? Can the story of science be told properly if it is confined to the current theories and their uses? Ifthe methods of science were absolutely permanent and noncontroversial perhaps there would be no practical reason for looking beyond them to the people and their efforts. But the ways of science never have been permanent and probably never will be. If science is studied, then, canthe studyignore the creators and the creative efforts responsible for the vital climate of change? I am inclined to think not, and so I offer this brief volume to introduce and bring together the history and formal theory ofquantum physics. vii viii PREFACE The story is told as .history in the first four chapters. The initial episode presents two revolutionary geniuses,MaxPlanckandAlbert Einstein, and their two papers that brought forth the quantum con cepts. The story then centers on Niels Bohrand his herculean effort to builda quantum theory based on the classical conceptsofmotion. Bohr was not entirely successful, but his insight and influence con tributed in no small way to the next great step in the history, the matrix mechanics ofWerner Heisenbergand Max Born.Ataboutthe same time, from an entirely different direction, another mechanics enters,the immenselyuseful wavemechanics ofErwinSchrodinger. The last episode of the story might be fancied as a finale: the prin cipal characters, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger,and Born participate in a lively and sometimes amusing effort to extract a word.and conceptual picture from the mathematical equations of quantum physics. What was achieved in the thirty "heroic" years of this history is not perfect, but it is a working system of quantum physics with vast scope. In the last two chapters of the book the formal basis of the theory, the postulates and the main arguments of the theorems, is displayed. The theory emerges, from all the accidents, mistakes, and controversies which brought it into being, like a great painting materializing from the chaos of the artist's studio, with pure, beauti- ful lines and magnificent vision. . Some readers will want to look beyond the introductory story told here, especially to the solutions of the equations of quantum physics and their applications to atomic and molecular problems. I can recommend for further reading: Fundamentals of Modern Physics by Robert M. Eisberg (Wiley), Quantum Chemistry by Henry Eyring, John Walter, and George E. Kimball (Wiley), and Quantum Mechanics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz (Addison Wesley). The Landau-Lifshitz book is to me the best available general treatment of nonrelativistic quantum physics. I alsorecommendfrequentbrowsingin the "NotesandComment" section at the endofthe book, where many more reading references are cited. And allow me to include an advertisement for the two volumes whichare plannedas sequels tothisone.Theywill,I hope, more or less complete the story of quantum physics. It Is a.pleasure to mention those whose fine help I received in preparing this book: ProfessorJames S.·Evans of Lawrence Univer sity, who found the time for a perceptive, literate and detailed read ing of the manuscript; Michael McKean of the Oxford University PRI;FACE ix Press, who toleratedseveral false starts and various strange ideas on how textbooks should be written; Caroline Taylor, whose phenom enal copy editing eliminated some appalling errors; FrankRomano, whose lucid drawings enhance the text; and, most of all, Evelyn, who understood the story and the writing problems so well, and couldn't have cared less about the physics. Cranberry Lake, New York W.H.C. November 1969 ..,.~.,;
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