ELI5: Schrdinger's wave equation : explainlikeimfive

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ELI5: Schrdinger's wave equation

submitted 10 months ago by Noisy_Plastic_Bird

Can someone explain in detail what each of the

factors mean and what the equation tells us?
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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2014

1 point (67% upvoted)

shortlink: https://redd.it/2pmj1p

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[] corpuscle634 3 points 10 months ago

The most important part is (psi). is the wave

function, it's a mathematical description of the system's
state. When we solve the Schroedinger equation, is
what we're trying to get to. is a function of position
and time, which makes sense: systems have locations in
space and they change with time, so should have a
location in space and change with time.
The easy starting point is the single-particle infinite
square well. Just think of it like a particle that's trapped in
a box that's impossible to escape. Here is a picture which
shows what looks like for a particle stuck in a box (the
box's walls are orange): note that there are three distinct
possibilities for what could be. More on that later.
's magnitude (essentially height) at a given point in
space tells us how likely it is that we'll find the particle at
that point in space. So, as you can see, there's zero
possibility that we'll find the particle outside the box,
since =0 outside. We're most likely to find the particle
somewhere in the middle of the box, which makes sense.
's frequency tells us how fast the particle is moving.
Since it's ELI5, you can think of frequency as "how much
wiggles." In the picture I linked you, 1 has the lowest
frequency, and 3 has the highest. So, a particle in state
3 is moving faster.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pmj1p/eli5_schrdingers_wave_equation/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:12 PM]

ELI5: Schrdinger's wave equation : explainlikeimfive

Alright, the other stuff. Starting from the right, the first
thing we see is "j." j is the square root of -1, also known
as the "imaginary number." It's there to make the
numbers line up, no real physical significance. is the
reduced Planck constant. It's there to make the units line
up, basically: if we used a different system of
measurement, it would be different or not there at all.
The next thing we see is /t. /t is the partial
derivative of with respect to time. What that means is
that it's a description of the way changes as time goes
on.
So, the left hand side of the equation is really just "the
way that the system's state changes as time goes on."
The right hand side is scarier, so I'll just skip to the end.
It's the energy of the system. Translating the whole
equation to English, it's "the way that a quantum
system's state evolves in time is equal to the system's
energy."
Okay, so the first thing we see is (-2/2m) 2. That term
represents the kinetic energy of the system. Remember
how I said that 's frequency tells us how fast the particle
is moving? Well, applying j pulls the frequency out of
, giving us momentum. The reason that gives us
frequency is... complicated, though I can go into it.
Getting from momentum to kinetic energy is pretty easy.
If you took physics in school, you'll recall that kinetic
energy is mv2/2, and momentum is p=mv. So, with some
quick algebra, we can also write kinetic energy as p2/2m.

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Momentum's j , so p2/2m is (-2/2m) 2. There, we've

got kinetic energy.
The other kind of energy is potential energy, which is
what V is in there for. V is some mathematical function
describing the potential. It's going to be different for
different scenarios: in fact, V is the only part of the
equation that changes from one problem to the next.
Going back to our infinite square well example, V=0 inside
the box and V= outside. If we were solving, say, a
hydrogen atom, V would be the potential generated by
the proton in the middle (1/40r if you remember your
electrostatics).

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Summing everything up, the Schroedinger equation from

right to left is "the way the system evolves with time is
equal to its kinetic energy plus its potential energy."
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[] Noisy_Plastic_Bird S
[

1 point 10 months ago

message the moderators

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https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pmj1p/eli5_schrdingers_wave_equation/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:12 PM]

ELI5: Schrdinger's wave equation : explainlikeimfive

Great ELI5, thank you! I definitely get the gist of it

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parent

...and 22 more

[] newbie12q 1 point 10 months ago

Pleasse tell me you are a Peter Higgs or stephen

Hawking or some other Nobel Laureate. You are
constantly writing some of the best answers to physics
questions and i wouldn't be surprised to find you to be
someone like that.
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discussions in /r/explainlikeimfive

555 points 319 comments

ELI5 how are laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol on

Sunday legal and not a violation of the separation
between church and state?

parent

[] corpuscle634 2 points 10 months ago

I don't even have a physics degree, man.

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parent

[] newbie12q 1 point 10 months ago

You don't need a physics degree to understand and explain what we think how nature
works ;)
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parent

[] McVomit 2 points 10 months ago*

Schrodinger's equations is the QM analog of Newton's 2nd law. So just as displacement "x" obeys
F=ma=d2 x/dt2 in classical mechanics, (wave function) obeys schrodinger's equation where || 2
equals your probability density(how likely you are to find a particle in some location).
There are lots of different version of the equation, I'm using the non-reltivistic time-independant
version for a single particle.
E = (-^2 /2m)(d^2 /dx^2 ) + U.

(read h-bar) is the reduced plank's constant(h/2pi), m is the particles mass(sometimes written as
which is the reduced mass), (d 2 /dx 2 ) is the 2nd derivative with respect to x(in more complicated
forms of the equation, this is replaced by 2 which is the Laplacian operator(similar thing but it takes
into account other variables like time)), U is it's potential energy and E is the total energy.
So, in layman's terms it says
"Total energy = kinetic energy + potential energy".

Pretty mundane when you take away all the fancy greek imo. :P
There really isn't a great ELI5 of this without having learned some college level physics :/
permalink
[] newbie12q 2 points 10 months ago

if you are really interested in that check out the lectures at yale OCW Q.M they are only 7 about one
and half hour long video, Hope it helps :)
permalink
[] Noisy_Plastic_Bird S
[

2 points 10 months ago

Thanks, I will! But first, sleep

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parent

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pmj1p/eli5_schrdingers_wave_equation/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:12 PM]

ELI5: Schrdinger's wave equation : explainlikeimfive

[] newbie12q 1 point 10 months ago

GN :)
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parent

[] jewami 1 point 10 months ago

To answer your question involves ELI21, not ELI5, so here we go:

You can think of it as a statement of conservation of energy. In the time independent case:
The momentum operator is hbar/i * d/dx -> p2 = -hbar2 * d2 / dx 2
We know that kinetic energy is p2 /2m, so -hbar2 /2m * d2 psi / dx 2 is the kinetic energy term.
V(x) psi is the potential energy term. The sum of these two = Epsi, which basically says K+V=E (i.e.
conservation of energy). We know that the hamiltonian classically is K+V, so the left side of the
schrodinger equation is really a hamiltonian operator. Therefore, the schrodinger equation can be
written H psi = Epsi. In linear algebra language, the solutions psi to this equation are eigenvectors (in
QM we call them eigenstates), and E are the eigenvalues (or eigenenergies in QM). The time
independent schrodinger equation tells us the characteristic wave functions (eigenstates) and
energies of the hamiltonian in question (e.x. the orbitals of the atom). The time dependent
schrondinger equation tells you how a wave function changes with time.
Edited to make the equations not look like shit when reddit renders them
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[+] [deleted] 10 months ago(6 children)
[] Noisy_Plastic_Bird S
[

1 point 10 months ago

Thanks for the great explanation, however it made little sense to me:( Guess I gotta step my
physics game up
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https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pmj1p/eli5_schrdingers_wave_equation/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:12 PM]