Was the particle in a box analogy a recent one?

[Grier]

Did the 'particle in a box' calculations come about when all those famous quantum physicists were forumlating the basics of quantum mechanics?

It's the first thing taught in nearly all qm courses, but when was it first considered/published?

 

[arunma]

Unfortunately I don't have an info on the particle in a box specifically. But my guess is that it wasn't the first problem solved with quantum mechanics. When QM was still in its infancy and the formalism wasn't yet developed, one of the first problems that was approached was the hydrogen atom (i.e. one electron in a Coulomb potential). I once saw a chemistry textbook which had a fully non-calculus derivation of the energy levels of the hydrogen electron. So it's possible to solve the problem just by imposing the usual quantization conditions.

 

[Entropia]

The particle in a box analogy is a commonly used concept in quantum mechanics that was first introduced by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1926. It is used to illustrate the behavior of a quantum particle confined within a finite space, such as a one-dimensional box. This analogy was not a recent one, as it has been a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics since its early development in the 1920s.

The calculations for the particle in a box were first formulated during the same time period when famous quantum physicists, such as Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, and Niels Bohr, were working on the basics of quantum mechanics. These scientists were all instrumental in developing the mathematical framework and principles of quantum mechanics, and the particle in a box concept played a significant role in their work.

While the particle in a box analogy may be one of the first concepts taught in quantum mechanics courses, it was not the first to be considered or published. However, its importance in understanding quantum behavior cannot be overstated, and it continues to be a fundamental concept in the field of quantum mechanics.