he dynan.rical nrotions of light and small ;lartrcles such as electrons and nuclei.

We see that extra conditions (e.g.. the Bragg condition or constraints on the de
Brogiie u'avelength) could be imposed to achievc some degree of agreenrenl
u'ith
experimental observation. Hou'e'u'er, u'e still are lcft wondering r.i hat the
equations
are that can be applied to properly describe such motior.rs and why the extra
conditions are needed. It turns out that a ner.r'kind of equation based on
cornbining
u'ave and particle properties needed to be developed to addressuch issues.
These
are the so-called Schrddinger equations to ri'hich we no\\' tunr our attention.
As I said earlier. no one has vet shown that the Schrodi-qer equation follou,s
deductivelir from some n.rore fundamental theory. That is. scientists did not
derive
this equatiotr; they postulated it. Sorre idea of hou'the scientists o1'that era
"dreamed up" the Schriidinger equation can be had by exan-rir.ring thc tirre and
spatial depcndence that characterizes so-called traveling u,aves. ltshould be
noted
that the people rvho worked on these problcms kneu'a great dcal about u'aves
(e.g., sound w'aves and \\.ater \\'aves) and thc equations they obeyed. Moreover.
they kneu' that u,aves could sometimes display the characteristic of quantized
u'avelenqths or fi'equencies (e.9.. fundamentals and overtones in sound
u'a'"'es).
They'kneu', for example. that r.r,a'u'es in one dinrension that are constrained at
trvo
points (e.g.. a violin string held fixed at tu'o ends) undergo oscillatory motjon
in space and time with characteristic fi'equencies and u'avelengths. For
exan.rple.
the motion of the violin string just nrentioned can be described as having an
arnplitude A(r. t ) at a position -r alon-q its len-sth at tinle I gircn by
l(,1-. /): ,4(.r-.0)cos(2.'ryr). (1.13)
where r, is its oscillation frequency. The arnplitude's spatial dependence also has
a sinusoidal dependence given by
I (,r. 0) : A sin(2r :; l).1. (1.1.1)
where.), is the crest-to-crest length of the rvave. Two examples of such waves 1n
one dimension are shown in Fig. 1 .4. In these cases, the string is fixed at x : 0
and
at x : l, so the $,avelengths belonging to the two waves shown are ), : 2L and
),= L.lf the violin string were not clarnped at ir: I, the waves couid have
any value of ),. Horvever. because the string is attached at ir : l. the allowed
u'avelengths are quantized to obey
)"= Lln. (1.15)
where n:1.2,3.4,...The equation that such waves obey, called the wave
equation. reads
d2,4(x,t) . d2A