Description
Book SynopsisThis is the second of two volumes on the genesis of quantum mechanics in the first quarter of the 20th century. It covers the rapid transition from the old to the new quantum theory in the years 1923-1927.
Trade ReviewAt the top of the scaffold, the arch! In Volume 1, Duncan and Janssen told the intricate story of the long struggles in the first twenty years of the emergence of quantum mechanics. Now, in The Arch, they give a definitive analysis of the climactic and brilliant mid-1920s, with the formulation of matrix and wave mechanics. It is an extraordinary achievement: all future work on this topic starts here. * Jeremy Butterfield, University of Cambridge *
Duncan and Janssen have done something courageous and even audacious. They have surveyed the sprawling, multi-stranded, twenty-seven year saga of the birth and consolidation of modern quantum mechanics and produced a systematic description of the main conceptual advances, in historical context. I expect it will become a unique reference for interested scientists and historians. * A. Douglas Stone, Yale University *
Table of Contents8: Introduction to Volume 2 III. Transition to the New Quantum Theory 9: The Exclusion Principle and Electron Spin 10: Theory in the Old Quantum Theory 11: Umdeutung paper 12: Consolidation of Matrix Mechanics 13: Broglie's Matter Waves and Einstein's Quantum Theory of the Ideal Gas 14: and Wave Mechanics 15: and Failures of the Old Quantum Theory Revisited IV. The Formalism of Quantum Mechanics and Its Statistical Interpretation 16: Interpretation of Matrix and Wave Mechanics 17: Neumann's Hilbert Space Formalism 18: Arch and Scaffold Appendices C. The Mathematics of Quantum Mechanics
