Schrödinger vs Real Quantum Mechanics

Erwin Schrödinger created quantum wave mechanics in 1925 and summarises his view on the subsequent development into the Copenhagen Interpretation CI in Chapter 1 of Thee Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Dublin Seminars 1949-1955):

• Let me say at the outset, that in this discourse, I am opposing not a few special statements of quantum mechanics held today, I am opposing as it were the whole of it, I am opposing its basic views that have been shaped 25 years ago, when Max Born put forward his probability interpretation, which was accepted by almost everybody.
• The view I am opposing is so widely accepted, without ever being questioned, that I would have some difficulties in making you believe that I really, really consider it inadequate and wish to abandon it. 

Schrödinger goes on to outline his basic idea that atom physics can be seen as a form wave mechanics similar to that of classical mathematical physics/continuum mechanics. This is the view adopted in my books Real Quantum Mechanics RealQM and Mathematical Physics of BlackBody Radiation BBR.

In particular, Schrödinger points to the basic role of wave resonance, which is a central theme in both RealQM and BBR (see earlier posts).   

Schrödinger strongly opposes to view atom physics as particle physics, also expressed in RealQM:

• Hence the idea of point-electrons, whatever it may mean elsewhere, becomes absolutely inadequate ....within the body of an atom. 
• To my mind it is patently absurd to call anything the probability of finding an electron near a particular point ... with respect to the nucleus.  
• Nobody has ever tried to look for one, nobody ever will; in fact nobody has ever experienced or will ever experiment in this fashion on a single atom of hydrogen or whatnot. 
• What astonishes me most is, that this kind of consideration is adopted as the basis of their theory (CI).

In particular, there is in Schrödinger's quantum mechanics no place for Bohmian Mechanics, since it gives particles an essential role. 

Altogether, RealQM can be seen as a concrete realisation of the ideas put forward by Schrödinger from his kick start in 1925 to maturity in later years. 

In RealQM there is no Measurement Problem from "collapse of the wave function" as a main mystery of CI. The spectrum of an atom is measured in resonance with a measuring device. In RealQM there is no reason to seek to measure the position of an electron as particle in an atom. 

New Year's Question:

• Did Schrödinger contemplate RealQM and dismissed it, or did he simply miss it? 

Maybe something for you to rethink?

PS Schrödinger on atomism, particles, quantum jumps/discontinuities and resonance:

• Hence there can be no shadow of a doubt, that the elementary particles themselves are Planckian ''energy parcels". This is fine. 
• But if we now dismiss the idea as too naive, the idea that energy is always exchanged in whole parcels (quanta), if we replace it by resonance view, does this not mean that atomism will go by the board? 
• Well no, not atomism, only the corpuscles, the atoms and the molecules, but not atomism. I believe the discrete scheme of proper frequencies/resonances... to be powerful enough to embrace all the actually observed discontinuities in nature for which atomism stood, without our having to enhance them by fictitious discontinuities that are not observed.

On philosophy of quantum mechanics:

• Philosophical considerations about quantum mechanics have gone out of fashion. There is a widespread belief that they have become gratuitous, that everything is all right in this respect for we have been given the marvellously soothing word of complementarity, that it is only the detailed mathematical or physical theory which is still at fault.
• I cannot share this view. In the 20 years of its existence, serious objections have again and again been raised against the current interpretation. Some of them have not been solved but shelved.
• No lesser person than Einstein still withholds his assent. In a letter to Max Born, he formulated his opinion in one marvellously poised sentence: 
• "Of this I am firmly convinced that we shall eventually land at a theory in which the things that are linked by laws are not probabilities but imaged facts, as was taken for granted until lately.''