This is the first post of the Introduction to Quantum Mechanics series. In the first post, we introduce the Stern-Gerlach experiment, which leads to the discovery of spin, a fundamental quantum mechanical nature of elementary particles. We then lay out the postulates of the QM. Finally, we introduce the Dirac notation, the mathematical notation we used in QM.
In the first post, we discussed the concept of “spin” in quantum mechanics. We sort of assert that it's a form of angular momentum. In this post, we will further support this argument by investigating rotations with the quantum mechanical way of thinking...
In the last post, we deal with the rotations in quantum mechanics. In the post, we focus on yet another translation, not in space, but in time. From time-evolution of quantum mechanical states, we will meet the Schrödinger equation and the Hamiltonian, the operator corresponding to the total energy of the system.
We are quite familiar with the idea of quantum mechanical states now. However, all the states we've been dealing with are states of only 1 particle. It's time to extend our discussions to the states of 2 particles.
In the 2nd and 3rd post, we discuss two forms of translations - rotations and time-evolutions. But wait, we haven't even talked about linear translation!
The simple harmonic oscillator is a classical problem in classical physics. In this post, we are going to analyze this familiar problem in the context of quantum mechanics. Our approach is typical of quantum mechanics and quite different from what we are used to doing in classical mechanics, and we are going to obtain many surprising but insightful conclusions.
Starting from this post, we are going to apply the techniques we learned in QM to solve some real-world problems. In this post, we are going to describe the hydrogen atom with Quantum Mechanics!
In the last post, we dealt with the hydrogen, while in this post, we will solve the helium.
This post gives a gentle introduction to thermal and statistical mechanics, including mysterious concepts like entropy, Boltzmann and quantum statistics, and Bose-Eeinstien condensation.
Why is sky blue? You may know the answer is Rayleigh scattering. But how do we understand Rayleigh scattering? We will try to find the answers in Maxwell's equations and a simple dipole model.