course overview review of Lagrangian, Hamiltonian and Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of classical mechanics conflicts with experiments key ideas in and coordinate formulation of quantum mechanics ...

Mean-field theory and semiclassical methods constitute vital frameworks in contemporary quantum mechanics. By replacing the intricate web of particle interactions with an average or “mean” field, mean ...

Ask a bunch of physicists to explain a quantum experiment and you’re unlikely to get the same description twice. Everyone agrees that the mathematical framework of quantum mechanics is peerless at ...

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science — and makes much of modern life possible. Technologies ranging from computer chips to medical-imaging machines rely on the ...

While William Rowan Hamilton isn’t a household name like, say, Einstein or Hawking, he might have been. It turns out the ...

The Irish mathematician and physicist William Rowan Hamilton, who was born 220 years ago last month, is famous for carving ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, according to ...

Some people think they have a poltergeist in their attic, some say they’ve seen ghosts on dark nights – I have John Stewart Bell. The physicist’s research and his tremendous legacy have been haunting ...

If you asked a thousand physicists, they would all disagree. This statement could apply to any number of topics – whether the universe is infinite, what dark matter is made of, how to make wires ...