1.

2 Matrices, waves and a statistical

interpretation
How should we describe the quanitzation weve
observed?
How can we interpret the wave-like behaviour of
particles such as electrons?
What are the implications?

What Heisenberg did first

Heisenberg wanted to develop a

description of reality based on
the discrete properties of systems: e.g. energy, angular momentum.
He realised that what we observe
is the transition, E = E2 E1,
rather than E1 or E2 directly.

He guessed that the new quanitities should depend on two states,

and suggested that familiar quantities such as x and p should be
replaced as x x11, x12, ..., x21, x22, ...
Luckily, Born and Jordan recognized this as a matrix:

x11 x12 x13

x x x
x = 21 22 23
x31 x32 x33
...
...
...

...

...

...
...

They also found the rule,

h
px xp = I
i
which we will come back to later.
In collaboration with Heisenberg, they showed that this condition
leads to the quantization of E, L already observed through line
spectra, the Franck-Hertz and Stern-Gerlach experiments.
I was discouraged, if not repelled, by what appeared
to me a rather diffiult method of transcendental
algebra, defying any visualization.
Schr
odinger

So then what are matter waves???

How should we interpret the wave-like behaviour?
This is a deep question, and historically has been the cause of a
great deal of debate. The winner (at the moment, at least) is
essentially Max Born, who proposed the statistical interpretation of matter waves.
Assumption: The state of a particle is represented
by a complex function (r, t) such that ||2dV is
the probability of finding that particle at the time
t in the volume element dV at the point r.

The Born interpretation

Born, talking about his quantum theory of scattering, said:
One does not get an answer to the
question, What is the state after
collision? but only to the question,
How probable is a given effect of
the collision? From the standpoint
of our quantum mechanics, there is
no quantity which causally fixes the
effect of a collision in an individual
event.

The statistical interpretation

Some of the features of a statistical interpretation:
normalization: we usually try to choose (r, t) so that
Z
Z
||2dV = dV = 1
we can calculate the mean position as
Z
hxi = x||2dV
in fact, the mean of any function of x, f (x), is
Z
hf (x)i = f (x)||2dV
and we can define a variance, 2
2 = h(x)2i = hx2i hxi2

Wavefunctions
The complex function (x, t) which describes the particles probability distribution is a wavefunction.

This wavefunction must be governed by a wave equation analogous to the classical wave equation Schrodinger formulated
such an equation in 1927.
The more I ponder about the
physical part of Schr
odingers
theory, the more disgusting it
appears to me.
Heisenberg

Support for a probability interpretation

One of the unique features of quantum physics, for which there is no
classical equivalent, is the phenomenon of tunnelling. Examples
include: transport between coupled quantum dots, nuclear fusion,
electron microscopes, tunnelling diodes, decay ...

The wavefunction of the particle is extended: some of the amplitude (i.e. the probability density) is outside the Coulomb barrier and so there is a chance that
the particle will be outside the
nucleus.

Einstein, de Broglie, Schrodinger, Planck, Bohm all vehemently

disagreed with the Copenhagen interpretation, an interpretation of quantum mechanics which includes the Born statistical picture of the wave function and which was propounded by Bohr.
God knows I am no friend of probability theory, I have hated it from the
first moment when our dear friend
Max Born gave it birth. For it
could be seen how easy and simple
it made everything, in principle, everything ironed and the true problems concealed ...And actually not a
year passed before it became an official credo, and it still is.
Schr
odinger

More from Born:

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 with fair success.

(Hence Einsteins famous comment, God does not play dice.)

Bohm and indeterminacy

Bohm argued that:
[The] uncertain and incomplete
character of knowledge that experiment at its present stage gives
us about what really happens in
microphysics is the result of a real
indeterminacy is not in any way
justified.
He believed that the indeterminacy of QM results from our lack of
knowledge, and that eventually we might understand the deeper
level of reality that would allow exact predictions.

The shut-up-and-calculate interpretation

Or we can take the Machian kind of world view and just say:

Quantum Mechanics is a man-made

generalization conveniently formulated
to account for various experimental observations.

Quantum mechanics works! So lets just accept it and worry about

the deep meaning when weve got nothing better to do.