A Correction: Some Remarks Concerning Schrodinger's Wave Equation

George David Birkhoff

P. Enders

This chapter introduces the paradigm ‘quantization as selection problem’ by means of few historical remarks. They include Einstein’s 1907 reasoning, Schrödinger’s 1926 derivation of his wave equation, and Gödel’s theorem and Munchhausen’s trilemma. The latter ones concern questions, which can be posed, but not be answered within CM. Such questions transcendent CM. This book poses the question, how the mechanics of oscillators without turning points looks like. (“oscillators without turning points” means oscillators, which may assume configurations beyond the classical turning points.)

John Morrison

John C. Morrison

Nicos Makris

vol. 81, 1926 paper, Schrödinger has developed a clear understanding about the wave equation that produces the correct quadratic dispersion relation for matter-waves and he first presents a real-valued wave equation that is fourth-order in space and second-order in time. In the view of the mathematical difficulties associated with the eigenvalue analysis of a fourth-order, differential equation in association with the structure of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, Schrödinger splits the fourth-order real operator into the product of two, second-order, conjugate complex operators and retains only one of the two complex operators to construct his iconic second-order, complex-valued wave equation. In this paper, we show that Schrödinger's original fourth-order, real-valued wave equation is a stiffer equation that produces higher energy levels than his second-order, complex-valued wave equation that predicts with remarkable accuracy the energy levels observed in the atomic line spectra of the chemical elements. Accordingly, the fourth-order, real-valued wave equation is too stiff to predict the emitted energy levels from the electrons of the chemical elements; therefore, the paper concludes that quantum mechanics can only be described with the less stiff, second-order, complex-valued wave equation.