Revisiting Schrödinger’s fourth-order, real-valued wave equation and the implication from the resulting energy levels

Abstract

In his seminal part IV, Annalen der Physik vol. 81, 1926 paper, Schrödinger has developed a clear understanding about the wave equation that produces the correct quadratic dispersion relation for matter-waves and he first presents a real-valued wave equation that is fourth-order in space and second-order in time. In the view of the mathematical difficulties associated with the eigenvalue analysis of a fourth-order, differential equation in association with the structure of the Hamilton–Jacobi equation, Schrödinger splits the fourth-order real operator into the product of two, second-order, conjugate complex operators and retains only one of the two complex operators to construct his iconic second-order, complex-valued wave equation. In this paper, we show that Schrödinger’s original fourth-order, real-valued wave equation is a stiffer equation that produces higher energy levels than his second-order, complex-valued wave equation that predicts with remarkable accuracy the energy levels observed in the atomic line spectra of the chemical elements. Accordingly, the fourth-order, real-valued wave equation is too stiff to predict the emitted energy levels from the electrons of the chemical elements; therefore, the paper concludes that quantum mechanics can only be described with the less stiff, second-order, complex-valued wave equation.

Keywords

• matter-waves
• real wave equation
• flexural stiffness
• atomic spectral lines
• quantum mechanics