- #1
houlahound
- 908
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Wondering what educators / researchers in the field think is the most important and logical flow of topics.
The way I was instructed was solving Schrodinger's wave equation, SWE, for every possible problem that could be solved with a pen and paper in say 2 or 3 pages max.
The problems were instructive toy problems which I assume are standard.
The next phase was solving similar if not the same problems but slightly less contrived where numerical techniques were used.
That was all great but when I first looked at the literature it did not resemble anything I had ever seen, it was all logic, set theory, abstract algebra...not a differential equation in sight.
The question is what is the progression in terms of topics to go from SWE to abstract algebra and logic/set theory of QM.
Why is SWE the standard (as far as I know) way into QM, can the more abstract approach be done from the start.
The way I was instructed was solving Schrodinger's wave equation, SWE, for every possible problem that could be solved with a pen and paper in say 2 or 3 pages max.
The problems were instructive toy problems which I assume are standard.
The next phase was solving similar if not the same problems but slightly less contrived where numerical techniques were used.
That was all great but when I first looked at the literature it did not resemble anything I had ever seen, it was all logic, set theory, abstract algebra...not a differential equation in sight.
The question is what is the progression in terms of topics to go from SWE to abstract algebra and logic/set theory of QM.
Why is SWE the standard (as far as I know) way into QM, can the more abstract approach be done from the start.