Related papers: Julian Schwinger (1918-1994)
Much progress has been made in the last few decades in developing the necessary mathematics for understanding the full implications of the quantum-mechanical many-body problem and why the material world appears to be as stable as it is…
The introduction of nonlinearities in the Schr\"odinger equation has been considered in the literature as an effective manner to describe the action of external environments or mean fields. Here, in particular, we explore the nonlinear…
In 1909, Einstein derived a formula for the mean square energy fluctuation in black-body radiation. This formula is the sum of a wave term and a particle term. In a key contribution to the 1925 Dreimaennerarbeit with Born and Heisenberg,…
Ronald Wilfrid Gurney is one of the lesser-known research students of the Cavendish Laboratory in the mid 1920s. Gurney made significant contributions to the application of quantum mechanics to problems related to tunneling of…
Einstein is considered by many as the father of quantum physics in some sense. Yet there is an unshakable view that he was wrong on quantum physics. Although it may be a subject of considerable debate, the core of his allegedly wrong…
For the simple system of a point-like particle confined to a straight line, I compile, initially in a concise table, the structural elements of quantum mechanics and contrast them with those of classical (statistical) mechanics. Despite…
Wolfgang Pauli's philosophy and physics were intertwined. His philosophy was a variety of Platonism, in which Pauli's affiliation with Carl Jung formed an integral part, but Pauli's philosophical explorations in physics appeared before he…
In two respects Ludwig Boltzmann was a pioneer of quantum mechanics. First because in his statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics he introduced the theory of probability into a fundamental law of physics and thus…
The biggest and most lasting among David Bohm's (1917-1992) many achievements is to have proposed a picture of reality that explains the empirical rules of quantum mechanics. This picture, known as pilot wave theory or Bohmian mechanics…
I offer some historical comments about the origins of Feynman's path integral approach, as an alternative approach to standard quantum mechanics. Looking at the interaction between Einstein and Feynman, which was mediated by Feynman's…
On August 4 this year, Tsung-Dao Lee, a renowned theoretical physicist of Chinese origin, passed away at the age of 97. His most famous discovery dates back to 1956, when -- together with Chen-Ning Yang -- he postulated that parity symmetry…
We are interested here in the program of reconstruction of quantum mechanics of the German physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizs\"{a}cker, which still has some supporters today. In the major part of this article, we limit…
Detlef D\"urr (1951-2021) was a theoretical and mathematical physicist who worked particularly on the foundations of quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. This piece is a rather personal look back at him and his…
Although practised as an art and science for ages, cryptography had to wait until the mid-twentieth century before Claude Shannon gave it a strong mathematical foundation. However, Shannon's approach was rooted is his own information…
Almost 60 years ago Dicke introduced the term superradiance to describe a signature quantum effect: N atoms can collectively emit light at a rate proportional to N^2. Even for moderate N this represents a significant increase over the…
The Schr\"odinger's wave function can naturally be realized as an 'instantaneous resonant spatial mode' in which quantum particle moves and hence the Born's rule is derived after identifying its origin. This realization facilitates the…
In contrast to classical physics, the language of quantum mechanics involves operators and wave functions (or, more generally, density operators). However, in 1932, Wigner formulated quantum mechanics in terms of a distribution function…
A consistent classical and quantum relativistic mechanics can be constructed if Einstein's covariant time is considered as a dynamical variable. The evolution of a system is then parametrized by a universal invariant identified with…
The 75th anniversary of Turing's seminal paper and his centennial year anniversary occur in 2011 and 2012, respectively. It is natural to review and assess Turing's contributions in diverse fields in the light of new developments that his…
We review the work and life of Otto Stern who developed the molecular beam technique and with its aid laid the foundations of experimental atomic physics. Among the key results of his research are: the experimental determination of the…