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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

Richard Phillips Feynman
- 01 Apr 1948 - 
- Vol. 20, Iss: 2, pp 367-387
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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.

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Precision tests of General Relativity with Matter Waves

TL;DR: In this article, the physics of atoms and clocks in weakly curved spacetime, and how each may be used to test the Einstein equivalence principle (EEP) in the context of the minimal Standard Model Extension (mSME).
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Time dispersion in quantum mechanics

John Ashmead
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use path integrals to predict a large variety of testable effects, including interference, diffraction, and entanglement in time, which are not ruled out by current experiments.
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Path‐summation waveforms

TL;DR: In this paper, a path-summation approach was proposed to calculate approximate waveform solutions for the scalar wave equation by a Monte Carlo summation of elementary signals over a representative sample of all possible paths between a source and observation point.
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Causality, symmetries and quantum mechanics

TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that there is no evidence for causality as a metaphysical relation in quantum phenomena and that there are no causal laws, but only probabilities for physical processes constrained by symmetries.
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Path integral, functional method, and stochastic dynamical systems

TL;DR: In this article, the path-integral approach to dynamical behavior of systems subject to Gaussian white noise is presented in a straightforward manner, starting from the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, the transition probability density and therefore moments and other statistics of the random response are ultimately expressed in terms of functional integrals over the sample-path space.