General Principles of Quantum Mechanics
Published on 1. October 1980
Book
Paperback/Softback
XII, 212 pages
978-3-540-09842-3 (ISBN)
Description
I am very happy to accept the translators' invitation to write a few lines of introduction to this book. Of course, there is little need to explain the author. Pauli's first famous work, his article on the theory of relativity in the Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften was written at the age of twenty. He afterwards took part in the development of atomic physics from the still essentially classical picture of Bohr's early work to the true quantum mechanics. Thereafter, some of his work concerned the treatment of problems in the framework of the new theory, especially his paper on the hydrogen atom following the matrix method without recourse to Schrodinger's analytic form of the theory. His greatest achievement, the exclusion principle, generally known today under his own name as the Pauli principle, that governs the quantum theory of all problems including more than one electron, preceded the basic work of Heisenberg and Schrodinger, and brought him the Nobel prize. It includes the mathematical treatment of the spin by means of the now so well known Pauli matrices. In 1929, in a paper with Heisenberg, he laid the foundation of quantum electrodynamics and, in doing so, to the whole theory of quantized wave fields which was to become the via regia of access to elementary particle physics, since here for the first time processes of generation and annihilation of particles could be described for the case of the photons.
More details
Edition
1974. REV. 2nd Printing ed.
Language
English
Place of publication
Berlin
Germany
Publishing group
Springer Berlin
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Professional/practitioner
Illustrations
XII, 212 p.
Dimensions
Height: 242 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
399 gr
ISBN-13
978-3-540-09842-3 (9783540098423)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-61840-6
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Wolfgang Pauli
General Principles of Quantum Mechanics
E-Book
12/2012
Springer
€139.09
Available for download
Persons
Content
I The Uncertainty Principle and Complementarity.- 1. The Uncertainty Principle and Complementarity.- 2. The Measurement of Position and Momentum.- II Schrödinger Equation and Operator Calculus.- 3. The Wave Function of Free Particles.- 4. The Wave Function of a Particle Acted on by Forces.- 5. Many-Particle Interactions - Operator Calculus.- III Stationary States and the Eigenvalue Problem.- 6. Stationary States as Eigenvalue Problem.- Chpater IV Matrix Mechanics.- 7. General Transformations of Operators and Matrices.- 8. The General Form of the Laws of Motion.- V Theory of Measurements.- 9. Determination of the Stationary States of a System through Measurement: General Discussion of the Concept of Measurement.- VI Approximation Methods.- 10. The General Formalism of Perturbation Theory.- 11. Adiabatic and Sudden Perturbations.- 12. The W K B Approximation.- VII Identical Particles, Spin and Exclusion Principle.- 13. Hamiltonian Functions with Transformation Groups. Angular Momentum and Spin.- 14. The Behaviour of Eigenfunctions of Many Identical Particles Under Permutation. The Exclusion Principle.- VIII Semiclassical Theory of Radiation.- 15. Treatment of the Radiation Processes Based on the Correspondence Principle.- 16. Application of the Semiclassical Theory to the Coherence Properties of Radiation.- IX The Relativistic One-Particle Problem.- 17. Introduction.- 18. Dirac's Wave Equation for the Electron. Free Particle Case.- 19. Relativistic Invariance.- 20. The Behaviour of Wave-Packets in the Free Particle Case.- 21. The Wave Equation when Forces are Present.- 22. Approximations of the Dirac Theory: The Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics of Spin as First Approximation.- 23. Approximations of the Dirac Theory: Limiting Transition to the Classical, Relativistic Particle Mechanics.- 24. Transitions to States of Negative Energy. Limitations of the Dirac Theory.- X Quantum Electrodynamics.- 25. Quantisation of the Free Radiation Field.- 26. Interaction Between Radiation and Matter.- 27. Self-Energy of the Electron. Limits of the Present Theory.