Erwin Schrödinger and Quantum Wave Mechanics

Abstract

The fathers of matrix quantum mechanics believed that the quantum particles are unanschaulich (unvisualizable) and that quantum particles pop into existence only when we measure them. Challenging the orthodoxy, in 1926 Erwin Schrödinger developed his wave equation that describes the quantum particles as a packet of quantum probability amplitudes evolving in space and time. Thus, Schrödinger visualized the unvisualizable and lifted the veil that has been obscuring the wonders of the quantum world. Quanta 2017; 6: 48–52.