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From Newton's Laws to the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation

Physics Education 2009-10-31 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

This is a pedagogical paper which explains some ideas in cosmology at a level accessible to undergraduate students. It does not use general relativity, but uses the ideas of Newtonian cosmology worked out by Milne and McCrea. The cosmological constant is also introduced within a Newtonian framework. Following standard quantization procedures the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the minisuperspace approximation is derived for empty and non-empty universes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/9806004,
  title  = {From Newton's Laws to the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation},
  author = {John W. Norbury},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/9806004},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages, 1 figure