Talk:History of quantum mechanics/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Intro paragraph...

This sentence

...the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck that any energy radiating atomic system can theoretically be divided into a number of discrete ‘energy elements’ ε (epsilon) such that each of these energy elements is proportional to the frequency ν with which they each individually radiate energy...

could better read

... the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck that any energy radiating atomic system can theoretically be divided into a number of discrete ‘energy elements’ ε (epsilon) such that each of these energy elements radiate energy proportional to their frequency ν with which they each individually radiate energy ...

But I'm not super sure if they mean the same thing? Rhetth (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Sentence structure

The opening paragraphs of this article are very difficult to understand - not because of the complex subject matter, but because of the sentence structure. I may try to iron it out a little myself but I don't want to make any similar mistakes (?) to Rhetth by changing the meaning. Also, the article seems riddled with poor punctuation. It's my understanding that WP uses the symbols " and ' rather than “ ” ″ ‘ ’ or ′.
Regards, nagualdesign (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Timeline

I feel that too much of the Timeline section of this article contains material that is only very loosely tied to the development of quantum mechanics. Even considered as prehistory, much of this material only had a tangential impact on the history of quantum mechanics, and being overly inclusive only serves to obfuscate the major discoveries that led to its rapid development during the first half of the 20th century and beyond. Does anyone else feel this way? — Myasuda (talk) 00:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree entirely. There is way too much material in this section that has little to do with quantum mechanics. --Bduke (Discussion) 01:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It's really a timeline of physical chemistry, and could used to create such an article, along with updating timeline of particle physics. Check out timelines. --Michael C. Price ^talk 03:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree about the timeline. Why is the discovery of the compass included in the timeline of quantum mechanics? The timeline is much too long as well. As Michael has said, this would be more relevant to the history of physical chemistry. I suggest removing all events pre 1800, maybe even later. I would rather the timeline started with Planck, but that's up for debate.

Would anyone have a problem with these removals and then all other events irrelevant to quantum mechanics:

CERN scientists publish experimental results in which they claim to have observed indirect evidence of the existence of a quark-gluon plasma, which they call a "new state of matter."

This is particle physics! Superdan006 (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

No objection, provided the new timeline article is created, and existing timelines updated. I wouldn't want to see the data lost. --Michael C. Price ^talk 05:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I do not see particle physics as part of physical chemistry. I agree about not losing this material. meanwhile an ediitor is piling in more and more items to the timeline and not engaging here. I'll leave him a message. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed about particle physics, which we mentioned above. So we all seem in agreement. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

There seem to be three pre-existing time articles that already cover this material. I've listed them at the article.--Michael C. Price ^talk 10:31, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your insightful comments. I agree completely. And thank you for preserving my data :) Essentially, the timeline I was proposing demonstrated the intellectual development of the ideas necessary for a quantum mechanical understanding of the world, but you are right -- I suppose I have gone too far afield. Please do whatever you feel is necessary. Lottamiata (talk) 08:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Per above, I've moved pre-1900 entries below. If any entries are deemed to be relevant QM pre-history, they can be easily restored from what's below. — Myasuda (talk) 13:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I have started copying many of these entries into Timeline of electromagnetism and classical optics. Remarkably, very few were already in the timeline, so they are a significant enhancement! Some could also be added to Timeline of classical mechanics . RockMagnetist (talk) 16:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Date	Person	Contribution
1088	Shen Kuo	First person to write of the magnetic needle compass and that it improved the accuracy of navigation by employing the astronomical concept of True North, thus making the first, recorded, scientific observation of the magnetic field (as opposed to a theory grounded in superstition or mysticism).
1187	Alexander Neckham	First in Europe to describe the magnetic compass and its use in navigation.
1269	Pierre de Maricourt	Published the first extant treatise on the properties of magnetism and compass needles.
1550	Gerolamo Cardano	Wrote about electricity in De Subtilitate distinguishing, perhaps for the first time, between electrical and magnetic forces.
1600	William Gilbert	In De Magnete, expanded on Cardano's work (1550) and coined the New Latin word electricus from ἤλεκτρον (elektron), the Greek word for "amber" (from which the ancients knew a spark could be created by rubbing it with silk). Gilbert undertook a number of careful electrical experiments, in the course of which he discovered that many substances other than amber, such as sulphur, wax, glass, etc., were capable of manifesting electrostatic properties. Gilbert also discovered that a heated body lost its electricity and that moisture prevented the electrification of all bodies, due to the now well-known fact that moisture impairs the electrical insulation of such bodies. He also noticed that electrified substances attracted all other substances indiscriminately, whereas a magnet only attracted iron. The many discoveries of this nature earned for Gilbert the title of founder of the electrical sciences.
1646	Sir Thomas Browne	The first usage of the word electricity is ascribed to his work Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
1660	Otto von Guericke	Invented an early electrostatic generator. By the end of the 17th Century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction with an electrostatic generator, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th century, when they became fundamental instruments in studies about the new science of electricity.
1675	Robert Boyle	Discovered that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum and did not depend upon the air as a medium. He also added resin to the then known list of "electrics."
1678	Christian Huygens	Stated his theory to the French Academy of Sciences that light is a wave-like phenomenon, primarily by demonstrating the refraction and diffraction of light rays.
1687	Sir Isaac Newton	Published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by itself considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution. In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of both momentum and angular momentum. Eventually, it was determined that Newton's laws of classical mechanics were a special case of the more general theory of quantum mechanics for macroscopic objects (in the same way that Newton's laws of motion are a special case of Einstein's Theory of Relativity).
1704	Sir Isaac Newton	In his work Opticks, Newton contended that light was made up of numerous small particles. This hypothesis could explain such features as light's ability to travel in straight lines and reflect off surfaces. However, this proposed theory was known to have its problems: although it explained reflection well, its explanation of refraction and diffraction was less satisfactory. In order to explain refraction, Newton postulated an "Aethereal Medium" transmitting vibrations faster than light, by which light, when overtaken, is put into "Fits of easy Reflexion and easy Transmission," which he supposed caused the phenomena of refraction and diffraction.
1708	Brook Taylor	Obtained a remarkable solution of the problem of the "centre of oscillation" fundamental to the development of wave mechanics which, however, remained unpublished until May 1714.
1715	Brook Taylor	In Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa (1715), he added a new branch to the higher mathematics, now designated the "calculus of finite differences." Among other ingenious applications, he used it to determine the form of movement of a vibrating string, first successfully reduced by him to mechanical principles. The same work contained the celebrated formula known as Taylor's theorem, the importance of which remained unrecognized until 1772, when J. L. Lagrange realized its powers and termed it "le principal fondement du calcul différentiel" ("the main foundation of differential calculus"). Taylor's work provides the cornerstone of the caculus of wave mechanics.
1729	Stephen Gray	Conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated the difference between conductors and non-conductors (insulators). From these experiments he classified substances into two categories: "electrics," like glass, resin and silk, and "non-electrics," like metal and water. Although Gray was the first to discover and deduce the property of electrical conduction, he incorrectly stated that "electrics" conducted charges while "non-electrics" held the charge.
1732	C.F. du Fay	Conducted several experiments and concluded that all objects, except metals, animals, and liquids, could be electrified by rubbing them and that metals, animals and liquids could be electrified by means of an "electric machine" (the name used at the time for electrostatic generators), thus discrediting Gray's "electrics" and "non-electrics" classification of substances (1729).
1737	C.F. du Fay and Francis Hauksbee	Independently discovered what they believed to be two kinds of frictional electricity: one generated from rubbing glass, the other from rubbing resin. From this, Du Fay theorized that electricity consists of two "electrical fluids": "vitreous" and "resinous", that are separated by friction, and that neutralize each other when combined. This two-fluid theory would later give rise to the concept of positive and negative electrical charges devised by Benjamin Franklin.
1740	Jean le Rond d'Alembert	In Mémoire sur la réfraction des corps solides, explains the process of refraction.
1740's	Leonhard Euler	Disagreed with Newton's corpuscular theory of light in the Opticks, which was then the prevailing theory. His 1740's papers on optics helped ensure that the wave theory of light proposed by Christian Huygens would become the dominant mode of thought, at least until the development of the quantum theory of light.
1745	Pieter van Musschenbroek	At Leiden University, he invented the Leyden jar, a type of capacitor (also known as a "condensor") for electrical energy in large quantities.
1747	William Watson	While experimenting with a Leyden jar (1745), he discovered the concept of an electrical potential (voltage) when he observed that a discharge of static electricity caused the electric current earlier observed by Stephen Gray to occur.
1752	Benjamin Franklin	Identified lightning with electricity when he discovered that lightning conducted through a metal key could be used to charge a Leyden jar, thus proving that lightning was an electric discharge and current (1747). He is also attributed with the convention of using "negative" and "positive" to denote an electrical charge or potential.
1771	Luigi Galvani	Invented the voltaic cell. Galvani made this discovery when he noted that, when two different metals (e.g., copper and zinc) were connected together and then both touched to different parts of a nerve of a frog leg at the same time, a spark was generated which made the leg contract. Although he incorrectly assumed that the electrical current was proceeding from the frog as some kind of “animal electricity,” his invention of the voltaic cell was fundamental to the development of the electric battery.
1784	Henry Cavendish	Perhaps the first to utilize the electric spark to produce the explosion of hydrogen and oxygen, in the proper proportions, to produce pure water. Cavendish also discovered the inductive capacity of dielectrics (insulators) and, as early as 1778, measured the specific inductive capacity for beeswax and other substances by comparison with an air condenser.
1784	Charles-Augustin de Coulomb	Devised the torsion balance, by means of which he discovered what is known as Coulomb's law: the force exerted between two small electrified bodies varies inversely as the square of the distance; not as Franz Aepinus in his theory of electricity had assumed, merely inversely as the distance.
1788	Joseph Louis Lagrange	Stated a re-formulation of classical mechanics that combines conservation of momentum with conservation of energy, now called Lagrangian Mechanics, and which would be critical to the later development of a quantum mechanical theory of matter and energy.
1789	Antoine Lavoisier	Stated the first version of the law of conservation of mass, recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), abolished the phlogiston theory, helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature.
1800	William Nicholson and Johann Ritter	Used electricity to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen, thereby discovering the process of electrolysis, which led to the discovery of many other elements.
1800	Alessandro Volta	Invented the voltaic pile, or "battery", specifically to disprove Galvani's animal electricity theory.
1801	Johann Wilhelm Ritter	Discovered ultraviolet light.
1803	Thomas Young	Double-slit experiment supports the wave theory of light and demonstrates the effect of interference.
1806	Alessandro Volta	Employing a voltaic pile of approximately 250 cells, or couples, decomposed potash and soda, showing that these substances were respectively the oxides of potassium and sodium, which metals previously had been unknown. These experiments were the beginning of electrochemistry.
1807	John Dalton	Published his Atomic Theory of Matter.
1809	Humphry Davy	First publicly demonstrated the electric arc light.
1811	Amedeo Avogadro	proposed that the volume of a gas (at a given pressure and temperature) is proportional to the number of atoms or molecules, regardless of the nature of the gas—a key step in the development of the Atomic Theory of Matter.
1819	Hans Christian Oersted	Discovered the deflecting effect of an electric current traversing a wire upon a suspended magnetic needle, thus deducing that magnetism and electricity were somehow related to each other.
1821	Augustin-Jean Fresnel	Demonstrated via mathematical methods that polarization could be explained only if light was entirely transverse, with no longitudinal vibration whatsoever. This finding was later very important to Maxwell's equations and to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. His use of two plane mirrors of metal, forming with each other an angle of nearly 180°, allowed him to avoid the diffraction effects caused (by the apertures) in the experiment of F. M. Grimaldi on interference. This allowed him to conclusively account for the phenomenon of interference in accordance with the wave theory. With François Arago he studied the laws of the interference of polarized rays. He obtained circularly polarized light by means of a rhombus of glass, known as a Fresnel rhomb, having obtuse angles of 126° and acute angles of 54°.
1821	André-Marie Ampère	Announced his celebrated theory of electrodynamics, relating to the force that one current exerts upon another by its electro-magnetic effects.
1821	Thomas Johann Seebeck	Discovered the thermoelectric effect.
1827	Georg Simon Ohm	Discovered the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance, making possible the development of electric circuitry and power transmission.
1831	Macedonio Melloni	Used a thermopile to detect infrared radiation.
1831	Michael Faraday	Discovered electromagnetic induction, making possible the invention of the electric motor and generator.
1833	William Rowan Hamilton	Stated a reformulation of classical mechanics that arose from Lagrangian mechanics, a previous reformulation of classical mechanics introduced by Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1788, but which can be formulated without recourse to Lagrangian mechanics using symplectic spaces (see Mathematical Formalism). As with Lagrangian mechanics, Hamilton's equations provide a new and equivalent way of looking at classical mechanics. Generally, these equations do not provide a more convenient way of solving a particular problem. Rather, they provide deeper insights into both the general structure of classical mechanics and its connection to quantum mechanics as understood through Hamiltonian mechanics, as well as its connection to other areas of science.
1833	Michael Faraday	Announced his important law of electrochemical equivalents, viz.: "The same quantity of electricity — that is, the same electric current — decomposes chemically equivalent quantities of all the bodies which it traverses; hence the weights of elements separated in these electrolytes are to each other as their chemical equivalents."
1834	Heinrich Lenz	Applied an extension of the law of conservation of energy to the non-conservative forces in electromagnetic induction to give the direction of the induced electromotive force (emf) and current resulting from electromagnetic induction. The law provides a physical interpretation of the choice of sign in Faraday's law of induction (1831), indicating that the induced emf and the change in flux have opposite signs.
1834	Jean-Charles Peltier	Discovered what is now called the Peltier effect: the heating effect of an electrical current at the junction of two different metals.
1838	Michael Faraday	Using Volta's battery, Farraday discovered “cathode rays” when, during an experiment, he passed current through a rarefied air filled glass tube and noticed a strange light arc starting at the anode (positive electrode) and ending at the cathode (negative electrode).
1839	Alexandre Edmond Becquerel	Observed the photoelectric effect via an electrode in a conductive solution exposed to light.
1852	Edward Frankland	Initiated the theory of valency by proposing that each element has a specific “combining power”, e.g. some elements such as nitrogen tend to combine with three other elements (e.g. NO₃) while others may tend to combine with five (e.g. PO₅), and that each element strives to fulfill its combining power (valency) quota.
1857	Heinrich Geissler	Invented the Geissler tube.
1858	Julius Plücker	Published the first of his classical researches on the action of the magnet on the electric discharge in rarefied gases. He found that the discharge caused a fluorescent glow to form on the glass walls of the vacuum tube, and that the glow could be made to shift by applying an electromagnet to the tube, thus creating a magnetic field. It was later shown by Johann Wilhelm Hittorf that the glow was produced by rays emitted from one of the electrodes (the cathode).
1859	Gustav Kirchhoff	Stated the "black body problem", i.e. how does the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body depend on the frequency of the radiation and the temperature of the body?
1865	Johann Josef Loschmidt	Estimated the average diameter of the molecules in air by a method that is equivalent to calculating the number of particles in a given volume of gas.^[1] This latter value, the number density of particles in an ideal gas, is now called the Loschmidt constant in his honour, and is approximately proportional to the Avogadro constant. The connection with Loschmidt is the root of the symbol L sometimes used for the Avogadro constant, and German language literature may refer to both constants by the same name, distinguished only by the units of measurement.^[2]
1869	Dmitri Mendeleev	Devises the Periodic Table of the Elements.
1869	Johann Wilhelm Hittorf	Studied discharge tubes with energy rays extending from a negative electrode, the cathode. These rays, which he discovered but which were later called called cathode rays by Eugen Goldstein, produced a fluorescence when they hit a tube's glass walls and, when interrupted by a solid object, they cast a shadow.
1869	William Crookes	Invented the Crookes tube.
1873	Willoughby Smith	Discovered the photoelectric effect in metals not in solution (i.e., selenium).
1873	James Clerk Maxwell	Published his theory of electromagnetism in which light was determined to be an electromagnetic wave (field) that could be propagated in a vacuum.
1877	Ludwig Boltzmann	Suggested that the energy states of a physical system could be discrete.
1879	William Crookes	Showed that cathode rays (1838), unlike light rays, can be bent in a magnetic field.
1885	Johann Balmer	Discovered that the four visible lines of the hydrogen spectrum could be assigned integers in a series
1886	Oliver Heaviside	Coined the term "inductance".
1886	Eugen Goldstein	Goldstein had undertaken his own investigations of discharge tubes, and named the light emissions studied by others kathodenstrahlen, or cathode rays. In 1886, he discovered that discharge tubes with a perforated cathode also emit a glow at the cathode end. Goldstein concluded that in addition to the already-known cathode rays (later recognized as electrons) moving from the negatively-charged cathode toward the positively-charged anode, there is another ray that travels in the opposite direction. Because these latter rays passed through the holes, or channels, in the cathode, Goldstein called them kanalstrahlen, or canal rays. He determined that canal rays are composed of positive ions whose identity depends on the residual gas inside the tube. It was another of Helmholtz' students, Wilhelm Wien, who later conducted extensive studies of canal rays, determining they were probably positive ions of hydrogen; in time, Wein's work would become part of the basis for mass spectrometry.
1887	Albert Michelson and Edward Morley	Conducted what is now called the "Michelson-Morely" experiment, in which they disproved the existence of a luminiferous aether and proved that the speed of light remained constant relative to all inertial frames of reference. The full significance of this discovery was not understood until Albert Einstein published his Theory of Special Relativity.
1887	Heinrich Hertz	Discovered the production and reception of electromagnetic (EM) radio waves. His receiver consisted of a coil with a spark gap, where a spark would be seen upon detection of EM waves transmitted from another spark gap source.
1888	Johannes Rydberg	Modified the Balmer formula to include the other series of lines, producing the Rydberg formula
1891	Alfred Werner	Proposed a theory of affinity and valence in which affinity is an attractive force issuing from the center of the atom which acts uniformly from there towards all parts of the spherical surface of the central atom.
1892	Heinrich Hertz	Showed that cathode rays (1838) could pass through thin sheets of gold foil and produce appreciable luminosity on glass behind them.
1893	Victor Schumann	Discovered the vacuum ultraviolet spectrum.
1895	Wilhelm Röntgen	Discovered X-rays with the use of a Crookes tube.
1896	Pieter Zeeman	First observed the Zeeman effect by placing the light source for hydrogen spectral emissions in a magnetic field.
1896	Henri Becquerel	Discovered “radioactivity” a process in which, due to nuclear disintegration, certain elements or isotopes spontaneously emit one of three types of energetic entities: alpha particles (positive charge), beta particles (negative charge), and gamma particles (neutral charge).
1897	J. J. Thomson	Showed that cathode rays (1838) bend under the influence of both an electric field and a magnetic field. To explain this he suggested that cathode rays are negatively charged subatomic electrical particles or “corpuscles” (electrons), stripped from the atom; and in 1904 proposed the “plum pudding model" in which atoms have a positively charged amorphous mass (pudding) as a body embedded with negatively charged electrons (raisins) scattered throughout in the form of non-random rotating rings. Thomson also calculated the mass-to-charge ratio of the electron, paving the way for the precise determination of its electrical charge by Robert Andrews Millikan (1913).
1898	Wilhelm Wien	While studying streams of ionized gas, Wien identified a positive particle approximately equal in mass to the hydrogen atom, thereby laying the groundwork for the later discovery of the proton as an elementary subatomic particle. Wien, also with this work, laid the foundation of mass spectroscopy.

References

^ Loschmidt, J. (1865), "Zur Grösse der Luftmoleküle", Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien, 52 (2): 395–413 English translation.
^ Virgo, S.E. (1933), "Loschmidt's Number", Science Progress, 27: 634–49

Timeline: Original research

The timeline has the look of original research, with almost all of the references being primary (carried to an absurd extreme in the entry for Edward Raymond Andrew). It needs references from secondary sources. RockMagnetist (talk) 09:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have moved the timeline to its own article. It was too large to be a table inside another article. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Some of the entries in the timeline are long for a timeline but would make nice additions to this history. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

"Heisenberg formulated his uncertainty principle in 1927, and the Copenhagen interpretation started to take shape at about the same time."

Before this statement, the article is good at briefly explaining the nature of things before or around introducing terms for the things. Why he had to, briefly? Did the Copenhagen interpretation depend on this principle, and if it did, then how? If it did not, then the concepts should probably be separated in the text of the article. Thank you. - 89.110.8.145 (talk) 18:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Overview - Bohr's reluctance

In the second paragraph of the Overview section it reads: "In 1900, the German physicist Max Planck reluctantly introduced the idea that energy is quantized in order to derive a formula [...]" Planck didn't introduce the idea that energy actually was quantized (reluctantly or otherwise). He regarded this as a mathematical trick that happened to lead to a solution of the problem of black body radiation. The idea that energy actually was quantized didn't surface until several years later. Jorgeditor (talk) 14:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Disagreement

It would be nice with a fuller account of the "debates" about how QM should be formulated in the period 1923-25. The Copenhageners were pretty much disposing of de Broglie as a crank (perhaps rightly so, he had been more than stubborn about a failed idea's validity in related areas (spectroscopy)), The Copenhageners did not like the thought of differential equations governing QM. One of very few taking de Broglie's ideas about particle waves seriously was Einstein. Another one was Schrödinger, who had had similar ideas published already 1921. I've just now learnt this from an entertaining article, Why was it Schrödinger who developed de Broglie's ideas in Historical studies in the physical sciences (can be found in JSTOR). YohanN7 (talk) 22:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Better history in Introduction to q.m.

Introduction to quantum mechanics calls this the Main article on history. But it has more complete information. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I have merged the Planck, photoelectric effect, and Bohr atom sections from the Introduction to quantum mechanics into this article. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:19, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I merged the remaining core history into this article. Still a lot of clean up is needed.

the intro is overgrown,
many citations missing
missing connections to Bohr-Sommerfeld model
Dirac is lonely at the end
QED, Willis Lamb not mentioned.
Particle physics.
Quantum computing.

(These were all issues in the original articles as well). Johnjbarton (talk) 17:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Where is the discussion on this merge? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 13:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a good a place as any, or you can open a new topic on this Talk page. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:00, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I opened a new section below entitled "Merge discussion" ---Steve Quinn (talk) 15:24, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm marking this resolved according the topic title: the History here is now better than the Introduction. However this History needs work and the Introduction is not resolved.

Resolved

Johnjbarton (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Merge discussion

The above section "Better history in Introduction to q.m." has some preliminary information.

First of all, a point I just made on another talk page is - following the history of QM is how one is introduced to QM, at least in that article. It is not about redundancy, the history has a purpose. It is not simply extra content weighing down the article, Deleting the history in Intro to QM may be detrimental to that article. If you want to do some summarizing then that might best be suited for this article. If you want to do some copy editing in the Intro to QM that is fine. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 15:25, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh sorry I didn't see this topic before I replied on the Introduction Talk page.

As far as I can tell, you don't object to the changes I have made to this page, the History page. Rather you object to our proposal to convert the Introduction from a focus on history to one focused on a non-mathematical, phenomena-oriented, descriptive introduction. Is that true? If so I think it would be best to follow up with discussion on Talk:Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics since that is where the changes will occur.

What do you think about this History page in its current state? Johnjbarton (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for posting there and here. I will open the discussion over at the Intro to QM talk page. Regarding this page I will actually have to read through it. I looked it over and it looks good. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 15:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The merge discussion is actually taking place here. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Stern-Gerlach section is incorrect.

The current section on spin describes the stern-gerlach experiment from the modern perspective rather than from the historical one appropriate for this article. Stern-Gerlach believed they proved the orbital angular momentum of the Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. Spin was unknown to them. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I reworked the spin section and moved it up closer to Bohr atom. Please review.