Assignment 1

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Classical mechanics:

o Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of macroscopic


objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery and astronomical objects, such as
spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies.
o The term "classical mechanics" was coined to loosely label the set of equations that
describe reality at scales where quantum and relativistic effects are negligible.

Basis of classical mechanics:


The development of classical mechanics is based on Newton’s three laws:
i. The law of inertia
o Law of inertia, also called Newton’s first law, if a body is at rest or moving at a
constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a
straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force.
o Although the principle of inertia is the starting point and the fundamental
assumption of classical mechanics, it is less than intuitively obvious to the
untrained eye.

ii. The law of force


o The second law of classical mechanics applies to accelerated systems which
are under the effect of an external force. The formula that depicts this law is:
F=ma.
o For a given body with mass, the resultant force F [N] acting on the body is
equal with the product between the mass m [kg] and the body’s acceleration a
[m/s2].

iii. The law of action and reaction

o If a given body exerts a force on a second body, the second body will exert in
the same time a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first
body.
o Newton’s second law can be summarized as: for each action there is a
reaction.
o Newton’s second law is also known as the principle of action and reaction.

Limitations of classical mechanics


1. Stability of atom

o According to classical theory electrons revolving around the orbit in circular or elliptic
path are accelerating.
o The accelerating electrons must emit the radiation and loose energy that means,
according to classical mechanics, atoms should be unstable which contradicts the
long-observed stability of atoms.
o Concept of quantization of atomic orbit solves this problem.
2. The energy spectrum of atoms and molecules

o According to classical theory, electrons revolving the electrons when de-excites, it


must emit radiation in all wavelength.
o But in the practical observations we find discrete emission and absorption lines of
spectrum.
o Selection rules developed using quantum mechanics perfectly describe atomic and
molecular spectrum.

3. Compton’s effect

o It is a phenomenon in which electrons get scattered by light. The scattering is


possible only when two particles are colliding. That means light sometimes acts like
particle.
o But in classical approach light is wave. The Compton’s effect can only be described
by quantum mechanics in which light photon is treated as a particle.

4. Photoelectric effect

o Photoelectric effect is an example of light-matter interaction which can be explained


with the help of particle nature of light.
o In photoelectric effect, energy of emitted electron depends only upon the frequency
of the incident radiation not upon the intensity of radiation.
o This phenomenon also could not be described by classical theory so we need
quantum mechanical description for it.

5. Energy spectrum of black-body radiation

o According to classical theory, the emission spectrum of black body must be


continuous. Experimental it is found that to be discrete.
o This behavior could not be explained by classical theory. So, Planck’s introduced
very fast quantum theory of black body of radiation.

6. Spin angular momentum

o Spin is intrinsic angular momentum of elementary particle. It is quantum mechanical


in origin and classical theory could not even conceive it. Such myriad of inadequacies
of classical mechanics were responsible for the development of quantum mechanics
theory.

Journey from classical to quantum mechanics:

Why was quantum mechanics born?

o There were other experimental results that could not be explained by classical
physics and needed the development of new theoretical concepts.
o For example, the inability of classical models to reproduce the blackbody emission
curve, the photoelectric effect, and the observation of spectral “lines” in the emission
(or absorption) spectra of atomic hydrogen.
o These experimental results dated back to the first decade of the twentieth century
and caused a nearly explosive reaction by theoretical physicists in the 1920s that led
to the formulation of quantum mechanics.
o The names of these physicists are Planck, Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, Born, de
Broglie, Dirac, Pauli, Schrödinger have become indelibly linked to new theoretical
models that revolutionized physics and chemistry.

Fathers of quantum mechanics

1. Louis de Broglie (1892 –1987)


Introduced wave-particle duality in his PhD thesis, 1924
2. Erwin Schrödinger (1887 –1961)
The Schrödinger equation, January 1926
3. Max Born (1882 –1970)
Physical interpretation of the Sch ‘s wave function
4. Werner Heisenberg (1901 –1976)
Matrix mechanics / Uncertainty Principle
5. Pascual Jordan (1902 – 1980)
Matrix mechanics
6. Paul Dirac (1902 –1984)
Special theory of relativity + quantum mechanics ‘quantum field theory’

Birth of Quantum mechanics:


1900 (Planck):
Quantization
o Quantization is the concept that a physical quantity can have only certain discrete
values. Electrical charge, energy, light, angular momentum, and matter are all
quantized on the microscopic level.
o Max Planck proposed that light with frequency νis emitted in quantized lumps of
energy that come in integral multiples of the quantity,
E=hv
o h = 6.63×10−34 J·s (Planck’s constant)
o The frequency ν of light is generally very large (on the order of 10 -15 s−1 for the visible
spectrum), but the smallness of h wins out, so the hν unit of energy is very small. The
energy is therefore essentially continuous for most purposes.
Black-body radiation:
o Blackbody radiation" or "cavity radiation" refers to an object or system which absorbs
all radiation incident upon it and re-radiates energy which is characteristic of this
radiating system only, not dependent upon the type of radiation which is incident
upon it.
o Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within, or surrounding, a
body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an
idealized opaque, non-reflective body).
o The issue was that the classical (continuous) theory of light predicted that certain
objects would radiate an infinite amount of energy, which of course can’t be correct.
o Planck’s hypothesis of quantized radiation not only got rid of the problem of the
infinity, but also correctly predicted the shape of the power curve as a function of
temperature.
o Planck initially thought that the quantization was only a function of the emission
process and not inherent to the light itself.

1905 (Einstein):
Photoelectric effect:
o Photoelectric effect, by which a polished metal surface emits electrons when
illuminated by visible and ultra-violet light, was discovered by Heinrich Hertz in 1887.

 The following facts regarding this effect can be established via careful observation.

a) A given surface only emits electrons when the frequency of the light with which it is
illuminated exceeds a certain threshold value, which is a property of the metal.
b) The current of photoelectrons, when it exists, is proportional to the intensity of the
light falling on the surface.
c) The energy of the photoelectrons is independent of the light intensity, but varies
linearly with the light frequency. These facts are inexplicable within the framework of
classical physics.
 In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed a radical new theory of light in order to account for
 the photoelectric effect. According to this theory, light of fixed frequency ν consists of
a
 collection of indivisible discrete packages, called quanta,
 1 whose energy is
 E = h ν.
 Albert Einstein stated that the quantization was in fact inherent to the light, and that
the lumps can be interpreted as particles, which we now call “photons.”
 This proposal was a result of his work on the photoelectric effect, which deals with
the absorption of light and the emission of elections from a material.
 This result relates the momentum of a photon to the wavenumber of the wave it is
associated with.

1913 (Bohr):
Wave nature of electron:
o Niels Bohr stated that electrons in atoms have wavelike properties.
o This correctly explained a few things about hydrogen, in particular the quantized
energy levels that were known.
o Electron diffraction refers to the wave nature of electrons. However, from a technical
or practical point of view, it may be regarded as a technique used to study matter by
firing electrons at a sample and observing the resulting interference pattern.

1924 (de Broglie):


Duality of matter:
o In classical mechanics, waves and particles are two completely distinct types of
physical entity. Waves are continuous and spatially extended, whereas particles are
discrete and have little or no spatial extent.
o However, in quantum mechanics, waves sometimes act as particles, and particles
sometimes act as waves—this strange behaviour is known as waveparticle duality.
o Louis de Broglie proposed that all particles are associated with waves.
o The fact that any particle has a wave associated with it leads to the so-called wave
particle duality.
o Sometimes things behave like waves, sometimes they behave like particles.
o A vaguely true statement is that things behave like waves until a measurement takes
place, at which point they behave like particles.

1925 (Heisenberg):
Matrix mechanics:
o Werner Heisenberg formulated a version of quantum mechanics that made use of
matrix mechanics.
o It was the first conceptually autonomous and logically consistent formulation of
quantum mechanics. Its account of quantum jumps supplanted the Bohr model's
electron orbits.
o It did so by interpreting the physical properties of particles as matrices that evolve in
time.

1926 (Schrodinger):
o Erwin Schrodinger formulated a version of quantum mechanics that was based on
waves.
o He wrote down a wave equation (the so-called Schrodinger equation) that governs
how the waves evolve in space and time.
o Initially Schrodinger thought (incorrectly) that the wave represented the charge
density.

1926 (Born):
o Max Born correctly interpreted Schrodinger’s wave as a probability amplitude.
o By “amplitude” we mean that the wave must be squared to obtain the desired
probability.

1926 (Dirac):
o Paul Dirac showed that Heisenberg’s and Schrodinger’s versions of quantum
mechanics were equivalent, in that they could both be derived from a more general
version of quantum mechanics.

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