English

Heisenberg's wave packet reconsidered

Quantum Physics 2007-05-23 v3

Abstract

This note shows that Heisenberg's choice for a wave function in his original paper on the uncertainty principle is simply a renormalized characteristic function of a stable distribution with certain restrictions on the parameters. Relaxing Heisenberg's restrictions leads to a more general formulation of the uncertainty principle. This reformulation shows quantum uncertainty can exist at a macroscopic level. These modifications also give rise to a new form of Schrodinger's wave equation as the equation of a vibrating string. Although a heat equation version can also be given, the latter shows the traditional formulation of Schrodinger's equation involves a hidden Cauchy amplitude assumption.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0509045,
  title  = {Heisenberg's wave packet reconsidered},
  author = {J. Orlin Grabbe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0509045},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

10 pages, minor corrections

R2 v1 2026-07-22T19:50:48.291Z