4 ms·
Was hoping to find Feynman in there :)
by seaman1921 5y ago
Was hoping to find Feynman in there :)
- auntienomen 5y agoFeynman was Silver Age of quantum physics. Dirac was already middle aged when they met.
- billfruit 5y agoWhat about Von Neumann? How do his contributions to Quantum Mechanics weigh up in terms of the development of the field.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kgwgk 5y agoHe was 23 years old at the time. (But he was already doing important work on QM, like the introduction of the density matrix earlier that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Foundations_of_Quantum_Mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Foundations_of_Qu... would be published five years later.)
- throwaway81523 5y agovon Neumann gave a mathematically rigorous treatment of QM, synthesizing the work by physicists that had previously gotten a confused reaction from mathematicians. In that way he explained QM and also made a mathematical platform for others to build on. It was absolutely brilliant work. But I think he didn't exactly advance QM. He took the physics version that made mathematicians say wtf, and created a mathematician version that made physicists say wtf. I think physicists mostly used Dirac's book "The Principles of QM" (1930), which went through 5 or 6 later editions and may still be in print.