Timeline for path integrals: how/why can the phase be identified with the action?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 19, 2013 at 12:36 | comment | added | twistor59 | Indeed, Feynman's original paper is still the most readable account I'm aware of. | |
| Jan 19, 2013 at 11:42 | comment | added | Luboš Motl | Alternatively, you should follow a derivation of the equivalence of Feynman's path-integral approach to Hamiltonian-based approaches - to see how over the infinitesimal times, the Hamiltonian switches to the Lagrangian etc. This is obviously a topic for hours of study rather than three lines of screaming at this server. I am afraid that you haven't understood those issues because you have never studied them! Without an understanding of the equivalence of the path-integral approach to the operator approach (or without its classical limit), it's still a valid definition of a QM theory! | |
| Jan 19, 2013 at 10:14 | comment | added | Michael | In the classical (small $\hbar$) limit you can find the dominant contribution to the path integral by the method of stationary phase. Because of that it is natural to identify the phase with something that is extremised in classical dynamics, the obvious candidate being the action. | |
| Jan 19, 2013 at 10:04 | history | asked | Isaac | CC BY-SA 3.0 |