Quantum
Early History | Planck's Contribution | Einstein's Contribution | Bohr Atom | Wave Mechanics | Matrix Mechanics | Quantum Meaning | Uncertainty | Quantum Results | Developments | The Future | Two Holes | Quantum Time Waits for No CosmosSimultaneously with the development of wave mechanics, Heisenberg evolved a different mathematical analysis known as matrix mechanics. According to Heisenberg's theory, which was developed in collaboration with the German physicists Max Born and Ernst Pascual Jordan, the formula was not a differential equation but a matrix: an array consisting of an infinite number of rows, each row consisting of an infinite number of quantities. Matrix mechanics introduced infinite matrices to represent the position and momentum of an electron inside an atom. Also, different matrices exist, one for each observable physical property associated with the motion of an electron, such as energy, position, momentum, and angular momentum. These matrices, like Schrödinger's differential equations, could be solved; in other words, they could be manipulated to produce predictions as to the frequencies of the lines in the hydrogen spectrum and other observable quantities. Like wave mechanics, matrix mechanics was in agreement with the earlier quantum theory for processes in which the earlier quantum theory agreed with experiment; it was also useful in explaining phenomena that earlier quantum theory could not explain.
Quantum
Early History | Planck's Contribution | Einstein's Contribution | Bohr Atom | Wave Mechanics | Matrix Mechanics | Quantum Meaning | Uncertainty | Quantum Results | Developments | The Future | Two Holes | Quantum Time Waits for No Cosmos