Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [109]
In a career that spanned some 50 years, Schrödinger's average annual output of research papers amounted to 40 printed pages. In 1926 he published 256 pages in which he demonstrated how wave mechanics could successfully solve a range of problems in atomic physics. He also came up with a time-dependent version of his wave equation that could tackle 'systems' that changed with time. Among them were processes involving the absorption and emission of radiation and the scattering of radiation by atoms.
On 20 February, as the first paper was being readied for the printers, Schrödinger used the name Wellenmechanik, wave mechanics, for the first time to describe his new theory. In stark contrast to the cold and austere matrix mechanics that proscribed even the hint of visualisability, Schrödinger offered physicists a familiar and reassuring alternative that offered to explain the quantum world in terms closer to those of nineteenth-century physics than Heisenberg's highly abstract formulation. In place of the mysterious matrices, Schrödinger came bearing differential equations, an essential part of every physicist's mathematical toolbox. Heisenberg's matrix mechanics gave them quantum jumps and discontinuity, and nothing to picture in their mind's eye as they sought to glimpse the inner workings of the atom. Schrödinger told physicists they no longer needed to 'suppress intuition and to operate only with abstract concepts such as transition probabilities, energy levels, and the like'.19 It was hardly surprising that they greeted wave mechanics with enthusiasm and quickly rushed to embrace it.
As soon as he received complimentary copies of his paper, Schrödinger sent them out to colleagues whose opinions mattered most to him. Planck wrote back on 2 April that he had read the paper 'like an eager child hearing the solution to a riddle that had plagued him for a long time'.20 Two weeks later, Schrödinger received a letter from Einstein, who told him 'the idea of your work springs from true genius'.21 'Your approval and Planck's mean more to me than that of half the world', Schrödinger wrote back.22 Einstein was convinced that Schrödinger had made a decisive advance, 'just as I am convinced that the Heisenberg-Born method is misleading'.23
Others took longer to fully appreciate the product of Schrödinger's 'late erotic outburst'. Sommerfeld initially believed that wave mechanics was 'totally crazy', before changing his mind and declaring: 'although the truth of matrix mechanics is indubitable, its handling is extremely intricate and frighteningly abstract. Schrödinger has now come to our rescue.'24 Many others also breathed easier as they learnt and began using the more famil-iar ideas embodied in wave mechanics rather than having to struggle with the abstract and alien formulation of Heisenberg and his Göttingen colleagues. 'The Schrödinger equation came as a great relief,' wrote the young spin doctor George Uhlenbeck, 'now we did not any longer have to learn the strange mathematics of matrices.'25 Instead Ehrenfest, Uhlenbeck and the others in Leiden spent weeks 'standing for hours at a time in front of the blackboard' in order to learn all the splendid ramifications of wave mechanics.26
Pauli may have been close to the Göttingen physicists, but he recognised the significance of what Schrödinger had done and was deeply impressed. Pauli had strained every ounce of grey matter he possessed as he successfully applied matrix mechanics to the hydrogen atom. Everyone was later amazed by the speed and virtuosity with which he had done so. Pauli sent his paper to the Zeitschrift für Physik on 17 January, only ten days before Schrödinger posted his first paper. When he saw