8/14/2019 PErwin.pdf

1/1

Erwin Schrdinger(He contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum

mechanics)

Erwin Schrdinger was an Austrian physicist who

introduced a theory describing the behaviour of sub-atomic particles by a wave equation that is now

known as the Schrdinger equation. The solutions toSchrdinger's equation, unlike the solutions to

Newtons equations, are wave functions that can only

be related to the probable occurrence of physicalevents.

Schrdinger was born on 12 August 1887 in Vienna,

Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna from

1906 and received his doctorate in physics in 1910. Itwas during this period that he acquired a mastery of

eigenvalue problems in the physics of continuousmedia, thus laying the foundation for his future great

work. Beginning 1920 he took up teaching positions at the universities of Stuttgart, Breslau,

and Zurich, where he settled for six years and produced his most valuable papers that form the

foundations of quantum wave mechanics. In those papers he described his partial differential

equation that is the basic equation of quantum mechanics. Adopting a proposal made by theFrench physicist Louis de Broglie in 1924 that particles of matter have a dual nature and in

some situations act like waves, Schrdinger introduced a theory describing the behaviour of

such a system by a wave equation that is now known as the Schrdinger equation. It came as aresult of his dissatisfaction with the quantum condition in Bohrs orbit theory and his belief

that atomic spectra should really be determined by some kind of eigenvalue problem.

The Schrdinger wave equation has the same importance in quantum mechanics as Newtons

laws of motion in classical mechanics. It describes the form of the probability waves (referredto as wave function) that govern the motion of small particles and it specifies how these waves

are altered by external influences. Schrdinger established the correctness of the equation by

applying it to the hydrogen atom and predicted many of its properties accurately.

The work of Schrdinger and Paul Dirac (1902-1984) formed the basis for most modern hightechnology, particularly through the emergence of the quantum theory of the solid state. , for

this work Schrodinger and Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics.

In 1940, Schrdinger became the first Director of the School of Theoretical Physics at the

Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Ireland, where he worked here till 1956 when he retired

and returned to Vienna as professor emeritus at the university. He died on the 4 January 1961in Vienna, Austria.