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History 181B:  Modern Physics
Class 27 (3/19/01)
Making use of quantum mechanics
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Outline The many-body problem

     Pauli's exclusion principle
     Spin:  a new quantum number, an intuitive picture

     Counting indistinguishable particles:  quantum statistics
          Fermi-Dirac (half-integral spin)
          Bose-Einstein (integral spin)
     Consequences for the many-body problem

Quantum chemistry and chemical physics

     Putting QM to work on the structure of matter
     Explaining the chemical bond:  the hydrogen molecule (H2)

     The sociology of a border domain
     Philosophy:  reductionism

The quantum theory of fields (begin)

     QM as a full quantum mechanics:  open problems
          How do we quantize fields?
          What is the relation between fields and particles?
          How can we make QM consistent with special relativity?

Names and terms 
Primary Secondary
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), NP 1945
Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), NP 1938
Paul Dirac (1902-1984), NP 1933
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), NP 1921
Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974)
fermions, bosons
Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution
Walter Heitler (1904-1981)
Fritz London (1900-1954)
resonance
Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2001