Go to the U of M home page
School of Physics & Astronomy
School of Physics and Astronomy Wiki

User Tools


classes:2009:fall:phys4101.001:q_a_1204

This is an old revision of the document!


Dec 04 (Fri)

Return to Q&A main page: Q_A
Q&A for the previous lecture: Q_A_1202
Q&A for the next lecture: Q_A_1207

If you want to see lecture notes, click lec_notes

Main class wiki page: home


Daniel Faraday 12/3 11am

Am I crazy, or is there a sign error in the eigenvalue in eq 4.136? As written it is <math> S_\pm \, |s\, m> = \hbar \sqrt{s(s+1) - m(m\pm1)} \, |s \,(m\pm1)> </math>

But when I do

<math>S_{+} \chi_-</math> with this, I get <math>\frac{\hbar}{\sqrt{2}}</math> as the eigenvalue. Shouldn't I get an eigenvalue of <math>\hbar</math> ??
What am I doing wrong?

Daniel Faraday 12/3 11:30am

Oh. Embarrassed. Arithmetic error.

Yuichi

One more picky point. This factor is not an eigenvalue strictly speaking since the vectors on the LHS and RHS are not the same.

Ralph 12/4 10:50 am

Why is it that energy is discrete but linear momentum is not? Aren't they related? I'm having a hard time understanding this.


Return to Q&A main page: Q_A
Q&A for the previous lecture: Q_A_1202
Q&A for the next lecture: Q_A_1207

classes/2009/fall/phys4101.001/q_a_1204.1259945572.txt.gz · Last modified: 2009/12/04 10:52 by fitch