Chapter P6: Quantum Mechanics. Atomic Physics

2010 ◽  
pp. 597-624
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Atomic Physics

Revision, Analogy, and the “Problem of Reality” in Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen and Human Touch

Modern Drama ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-196
Author(s):  
Derek Gingrich
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Atomic Physics ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Human Touch

Published eight years after the premiere of Copenhagen, his celebrated play about atomic physics, Michael Frayn’s Human Touch (2006) reflects on the epistemological and phenomenological implications of human experience, syntax, and quantum mechanics. Summarily, Frayn posits that reality’s fundamental indeterminacy makes thought, language, identity, culture, and experience possible at all. The book echoes more than Copenhagen’s themes, however, and the pair’s structural similarities invite readers to rethink Copenhagen as a piece of philosophical theatre. The play foregrounds the process of drafting and redrafting, and it stands as a draft of the ideas in the book that soon followed. The book follows suit as it drafts and redrafts its central question through its prodigious length. In conversation with Human Touch, we can read Copenhagen as an exploration of our ability to forge connections between otherwise disparate features of reality (including quantum mechanics). More crucially, Copenhagen demonstrates the pivotal role that theatre plays in the indeterminate epistemology that Frayn espouses in Human Touch. In doing so, Copenhagen embodies an earlier draft of the epistemology Frayn later explicates in the book. In other words, Copenhagen represents a rare example of a thinker working through philosophical ideas on stage before committing them to an argument.

scholarly journals Wave Function Collapse in Atomic Physics

1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 77 ◽  
Author(s):  
DT Pegg
Keyword(s):  
Wave Function ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Optics ◽  
Phase Difference ◽  
Atomic Physics ◽  
Single Photon ◽  
Single Atom ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Wave Function Collapse ◽  
Statistical Results

Wave function collapse has been a contentious concept in quantum mechanics for a considerable time. Here we show examples of how the concept can be used to advantage in predicting the statistical results of three experiments in atomic physics and quantum optics: photon antibunching, single-photon phase difference states and interrupted single-atom fluorescence. We examine the question of whether or not collapse is 'really' a physical process, and discuss the consequences of simply omitting it but including the observer as a part of the overall system governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. The resulting entangled world does not appear to be inconsistent with experience.

scholarly journals Quantum Tunneling in Deformed Quantum Mechanics with Minimal Length

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaobo Guo ◽  
Bochen Lv ◽  
Jun Tao ◽  
Peng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Atomic Physics ◽  
Quantum Tunneling ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Minimal Length ◽  
Wkb Approximation ◽  
Potential Barriers ◽  
Connection Formula ◽  
Length Effects ◽  
Tunneling Rates

In the deformed quantum mechanics with a minimal length, one WKB connection formula through a turning point is derived. We then use it to calculate tunneling rates through potential barriers under the WKB approximation. Finally, the minimal length effects on two examples of quantum tunneling in nuclear and atomic physics are discussed.

The “accidental” degeneracy of the hydrogen atom is no accident

2015 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-317
Author(s):  
P.C. Deshmukh ◽  
Aarthi Ganesan ◽  
N. Shanthi ◽  
Blake Jones ◽  
James Nicholson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Energy Spectrum ◽  
Hydrogen Atom ◽  
Schrödinger Equation ◽  
Atomic Physics ◽  
Schrodinger Equation ◽  
Spin States ◽  
Interesting Aspect ◽  
Accidental Degeneracy ◽  
Pedagogical Analysis

The Schrödinger equation does not account for the 2n2degeneracy of the hydrogen atom, which it dismisses as an “accidental” degeneracy. The factor of “2” in the 2n2degeneracy is well-accounted-for in the relativistic formulation by the two spin states of the electron. The n2degeneracy is nevertheless not quite an “accident”; it is due to the SO(4), rather than SO(3), symmetry of the hydrogen atom. This result is well known, but is inadequately commented upon in most courses in quantum mechanics and atomic physics, leaving the student wondering about the origins of the n2degeneracy of the hydrogen atom. A pedagogical analysis of this interesting aspect, which highlights the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, is presented in this article. While doing so, not only is the n2degeneracy of the hydrogen atom explained, but its energy spectrum and eigenfunctions are obtained without even using the Schrödinger equation, employing only the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics rather than the Schrödinger equation.

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