There are actually two versions of Schrödinger’s equation, one time-dependent and one time-independent while the focus in this book is on the latter, both are developed in this chapter. Like Newton’s laws of motion, there is no rigorous derivation or proof of Schrödinger’s equation, but a plausibility argument based on the classical wave equation and energy concepts is presented. Schrödinger’s equation is a type of “wave” equation, so this chapter opens with a description of the “classical” wave equation, that which would be used to describe a traveling wave propagating along a string such as one encounters in elementary physics.
This chapter develops Schrödinger’s equation, the fundamental law of quantum physics.
