Shrödonger for the FASHION WIN.
https://twitter.com/PhysInHistory/status/1342113542636412929
OK So the reason for the dong here is a story everyone should know, if they like QM and/or had to learn to solve Schrödinger’s equation. It’s NSFW ok?
Hold on I’m getting a scotch.
OK back. It’s a @The_Macallan 21.
When I was an undergrad I ran out of physics classes. So I was allowed to take graduate first year QM. I was a junior so I was awestruck but now I realize the professor was the poor dude who drew the short straw and had to teach 1st year QM.
When I was an undergrad I ran out of physics classes. So I was allowed to take graduate first year QM. I was a junior so I was awestruck but now I realize the professor was the poor dude who drew the short straw and had to teach 1st year QM.
It was actually pretty cool because it was basically a #Sakurai based course. This is important because non-matrix based approaches were deemed “simple” in view of all this. If you don’t know what I mean just understand that Schrödinger was early and so after he figured it out... 
...other people could take time to see if there were better or more natural or easier ways to do it. The great JJ Sakurai was one of them, and the story of the book I mention, completed through sheer force of will by his wife after he died, is another worth telling. Anyway...
My professor for this was a powerfully Catholic, tea-totaling, by-the-book guy who went so far as to collect and grade our NOTEBOOKS. It was weird for me at the time because I figured grad school was less grade-schooly than that but it was what it was. Still have the notes...
OK so one day he starts the class by saying that he’s going to tell us the story of the discovery of QM, so that we understand why the notation is weird, and why we learn it in historical order, etc. and he’s REALLY down on this history, and we are glancing at one another... why?
So he sets the chalk down (this was the 90s, kids), rolls up his sleeves, and leans against the blackboard facing us. We have never seen this behavior. Usually it’s a flurry of equations and mumbling into the slate. Now he’s...like...LEVELLING with us?
Also Dirac is the most English looking person EVER here.
He says, and I have to accentuate here that most of the students were Chinese and Russian and had...awkward...English, he says “THIS STORY IS PERVERTED BUT ITS IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO KNOW.” One of the Chinese guys laughs nervously but stops when he is STARED AT.
“This guy Shrödinger,” the prof says, turning, writing the name on the board. “He was kind of a sick guy.” My friend Rohit at this point stares at me me, pleadingly, like, why have I come to America? “He believed that his best work only happened after he had made love to a woman”
“He also believed that it was acceptable to have sexual relations with women other than his wife.” Rohit at this point appears ready to vomit. He didn’t come 1st in Calculus in Bangalore for this shit. “It turns out Schrödinger had an ‘arrangement’ with his LESBIAN wife...”
OK. So this is clearly some kind of huge therapy-moment for the professor. He’s projecting some serious shit. We are all freaking out because the context switch is NECK SNAPPING from our usual day-to-day. And I’m an undergrad, with ultra-mega-class imposter syndrome...
He continues, “so Erwin Shrödinger get a hotel room, and has his mistress there with him, and his wife knows, and this is all agreed upon, and the mistress is, is...” and he starts writing on the board...
“This equation is the result of an incestuous orgasm!”
Rohit quietly leaves the room, and vomits in a trash can in the electronics lab. <end>
Postmortem: I have a huge Sakurai bias to this day because of this. But then I went into QFT and it all seemed... less important. We are lucky to understand what little we do of the fabric of reality. Whatever it takes. Stay safe, I love you all. 👊❤️
*he got the words confused- he meant adulterous. It sticks with me because it was possibly ACCURATE.
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