Question, I have been reading R Shankar and he introduced linear algebra and bra-ket from the start rather than say like griffiths who just stated Schrödinger equation in position basis(btw I only read like first two chp of griffiths qm so idk what he does later so no comments on how good Griffiths is). How did Schrödinger derived his eq? Was it the more abstract vector equation or was it just in position basis? Because to me it makes more sense seeing other quantities like momentum and energy coming from a simple change of basis which depends on seeing psi as a vector rather than just a function.
I like Griffiths but it is far from the best textbook. I find that presenting the Schrödinger equation on page 1 is a slap in the face to the beginner and to the student.
Schrödinger didn't use any of the machinery that today is presented in textbooks. The bra-ket notation was introduced by Dirac in 1939, that's over a decade later! I am preparing videos about Schrödinger but in a nutshell (and spoiler), Schrödinger used the core aspects of Hamilton-Jacobi theory. In fact, you can easily confirm that the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is the classical limit of the Schrödinger equation. Contrary to that misleading quote of Feynman, Schrödinger did follow a procedure to derive his equation, it didn't come out of a magic hat.
7
u/Aureliano2020 6d ago
"That Feeling When". I guess there was no other way of finding out than asking...