Erwin Schrödinger

Theoretical physicist — Erwin Schrödinger (Vienna 1887 – Vienna 1961) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, among the founders of quantum mechanics. In 1926 he formulated the wave equation that bears his name, describing the behaviour of particles through a wave function: this was the “wave mechanics” approach, equivalent to Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics. For this result he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, shared with Paul Dirac. He left Nazi Germany for ethical reasons, later working in Dublin. His short book “What Is Life?” (1944) inspired the birth of molecular biology.

Curiosity

He devised the celebrated “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox, a cat in a box simultaneously alive and dead, to criticise the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Theories and contributions

• Schrödinger equation — Describes the evolution of the wave function of a quantum system: $i\hbar\frac{\partial \psi}{\partial t}=\hat{H}\psi$.
• Wave function — The squared modulus $|\psi|^2$ gives the probability density of finding the particle at a point.

Present in chapters

11 21

Linked atoms

3 linked atoms.

11 Entropia

• The arrow of time: why the past differs from the future

21 Introduzione alla meccanica quantistica

• What is a measurement
• The four pillars: a single structure