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RE: QM for sophomores?



Hi Jon-
My advice: forget the Schroedinger Equation and forget the wave
function. When I taught a similar course I was able to do so without any
mention of either. These are not the essence of quantum mechanics
anyhow. The essence of QM, as once emphasized by the late John Bardeen
in a Physics Today article just before he died, is coherence. Coherent
beams have all the properties of waves and exhibit interference and
diffraction patterns. This is adequate to discuss the de Broglie
wave and, with a bit of sleight-of-hand, the Bohr model of the atom. It
also lets's you discuss Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluid
behavior in He4.
The concept of coherence, terribly important and terribly
under emphasized, should occupy a good part of the time that you would
otherwise spend on formal mathematics. You can start with the observation
that Dr. Young had to pass sunlight through a slit before he could use
it in Young's experiment, and go on from there. There is also room
for fun with lasers, acoustics and whatever else your imagination permits.
I do hope that you are giving detailed coverage to the Rutherford
Experiment and the calculation of Rutherford scattering, which is key
not only to the discovery of the nucleus but also the development of the
quark model (QCD).
Regards,
Jack