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Ehrenfest's Theorem
The Ehrenfest theorem, named after Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian theoretical physicist at Leiden University, relates the time derivative of the expectation values of the position and momentum operators ''x'' and ''p'' to the expectation value of the force F=-V'(x) on a massive particle moving in a scalar potential V(x), The Ehrenfest theorem is a special case of a more general relation between the expectation of any quantum mechanical operator and the expectation of the commutator of that operator with the Hamiltonian of the system where is some quantum mechanical operator and is its expectation value. It is most apparent in the Heisenberg picture of quantum mechanics, where it amounts to just the expectation value of the Heisenberg equation of motion. It provides mathematical support to the correspondence principle. The reason is that Ehrenfest's theorem is closely related to Liouville's theorem of Hamiltonian mechanics, which involves the Poisson bracket instead of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Ehrenfest
Paul Ehrenfest (18 January 1880 – 25 September 1933) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, who made major contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition and the Ehrenfest theorem. He bonded with Albert Einstein on a visit to Prague in 1912 and became a professor in Leiden, where he frequently hosted Einstein. Biography Paul Ehrenfest was born and grew up in Vienna to Jewish parents from Loštice in Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). His parents, Sigmund Ehrenfest and Johanna Jellinek, ran a grocery store. Although the family was not overly religious, Paul studied Hebrew and the history of the Jewish people. Later, he always emphasized his Jewish roots. Ehrenfest excelled in grade school but did not do well at the Akademisches Gymnasium, his best subject being mathematics. After transferring to the Franz Josef Gymnasium, his marks improved. In 1899, he passed the final exams. He m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schrödinger Equation
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who postulated the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of a wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. The equation can be derived from the fact that the time-evolution operator must be unitary, and must therefore be generated by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stone's Theorem On One-parameter Unitary Groups
In mathematics, Stone's theorem on one-parameter unitary groups is a basic theorem of functional analysis that establishes a one-to-one correspondence between self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space \mathcal and one-parameter families :(U_)_ of unitary operators that are strongly continuous, i.e., :\forall t_0 \in \R, \psi \in \mathcal: \qquad \lim_ U_t(\psi) = U_(\psi), and are homomorphisms, i.e., :\forall s,t \in \R : \qquad U_ = U_t U_s. Such one-parameter families are ordinarily referred to as strongly continuous one-parameter unitary groups. The theorem was proved by , and showed that the requirement that (U_t)_ be strongly continuous can be relaxed to say that it is merely weakly measurable, at least when the Hilbert space is separable. This is an impressive result, as it allows one to define the derivative of the mapping t \mapsto U_t, which is only supposed to be continuous. It is also related to the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras. Formal statem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newton's Second Law
Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force. # When a body is acted upon by a force, the time rate of change of its momentum equals the force. # If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions. The three laws of motion were first stated by Isaac Newton in his '' Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), originally published in 1687. Newton used them to investigate and explain the motion of many physical objects and systems, which laid the foundation for classical mechanics. In the time since Newton, the conceptual content of classical physics has been reformulated in alternative ways, involving differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Product Rule
In calculus, the product rule (or Leibniz rule or Leibniz product rule) is a formula used to find the derivatives of products of two or more functions. For two functions, it may be stated in Lagrange's notation as (u \cdot v)' = u ' \cdot v + u \cdot v' or in Leibniz's notation as \frac (u\cdot v) = \frac \cdot v + u \cdot \frac. The rule may be extended or generalized to products of three or more functions, to a rule for higher-order derivatives of a product, and to other contexts. Discovery Discovery of this rule is credited to Gottfried Leibniz, who demonstrated it using differentials. (However, J. M. Child, a translator of Leibniz's papers, argues that it is due to Isaac Barrow.) Here is Leibniz's argument: Let ''u''(''x'') and ''v''(''x'') be two differentiable functions of ''x''. Then the differential of ''uv'' is : \begin d(u\cdot v) & = (u + du)\cdot (v + dv) - u\cdot v \\ & = u\cdot dv + v\cdot du + du\cdot dv. \end Since the term ''du''·''dv'' is "negligi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ad Hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Common examples are ad hoc committees and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task. In other fields, the term could refer to, for example, a military unit created under special circumstances (see '' task force''), a handcrafted network protocol (e.g., ad hoc network), a temporary banding together of geographically-linked franchise locations (of a given national brand) to issue advertising coupons, or a purpose-specific equation. Ad hoc can also be an adjective describing the temporary, provisional, or improvised methods to deal with a particular problem, the tendency of which has given rise to the noun ''adhocism''. Styling Style guides disagree on whether Latin phrases like ad hoc should be italicized. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Evolution
Time evolution is the change of state brought about by the passage of time, applicable to systems with internal state (also called ''stateful systems''). In this formulation, ''time'' is not required to be a continuous parameter, but may be discrete or even finite. In classical physics, time evolution of a collection of rigid bodies is governed by the principles of classical mechanics. In their most rudimentary form, these principles express the relationship between forces acting on the bodies and their acceleration given by Newton's laws of motion. These principles can also be equivalently expressed more abstractly by Hamiltonian mechanics or Lagrangian mechanics. The concept of time evolution may be applicable to other stateful systems as well. For instance, the operation of a Turing machine can be regarded as the time evolution of the machine's control state together with the state of the tape (or possibly multiple tapes) including the position of the machine's read-write h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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