scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

Richard Phillips Feynman
- 01 Apr 1948 - 
- Vol. 20, Iss: 2, pp 367-387
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, the authors formulated non-relativistic quantum mechanics in a different way and showed that the probability of an event which can happen in several different ways is the absolute square of a sum of complex contributions, one from each alternative way.
Abstract
Non-relativistic quantum mechanics is formulated here in a different way. It is, however, mathematically equivalent to the familiar formulation. In quantum mechanics the probability of an event which can happen in several different ways is the absolute square of a sum of complex contributions, one from each alternative way. The probability that a particle will be found to have a path x(t) lying somewhere within a region of space time is the square of a sum of contributions, one from each path in the region. The contribution from a single path is postulated to be an exponential whose (imaginary) phase is the classical action (in units of ℏ) for the path in question. The total contribution from all paths reaching x, t from the past is the wave function ψ(x, t). This is shown to satisfy Schroedinger's equation. The relation to matrix and operator algebra is discussed. Applications are indicated, in particular to eliminate the coordinates of the field oscillators from the equations of quantum electrodynamics.

read more

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Quantum-Coherent Electronic Energy Transfer: Did Nature Think of It First?

TL;DR: In this paper, the role of quantum coherence in photosynthesis is explained, and the meaning of quantum-coherent energy transfer is compared to Forster energy transfer, and interdisciplinary questions for future work are noted.
Journal ArticleDOI

Periodic Orbits, Entanglement, and Quantum Many-Body Scars in Constrained Models: Matrix Product State Approach

TL;DR: In this paper, a manifold of locally entangled spin states, representable by low-bond dimension matrix product states, and derive equations of motion for them using the time-dependent variational principle.
Journal ArticleDOI

Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Gas Adsorption in Cu3(BTC)2: An Effective Activation Procedure

TL;DR: In this article, the authors improved the activation process for CuBTC by extracting the N,N-dimethylformamide-solvated crystals with methanol; they identified material activa...