I. Über die Erhaltungssätze in der Quantenmechanik [On the conservation laws of quantum mechanics]. Offprint from: Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, 1927. [With:] II. Über die Operation der Zeitumkehr in der Quantenmechanik [On the operation of time-reversal in quantum mechanics]. Offprint from ibid., 1932

WIGNER, Eugene Paul

Published by Weidmann, Berlin, 1932

About this Item

PARITY AND TIME-REVERSAL IN QUANTUM MECHANICS. First edition, very rare offprints, of these two fundamental papers in quantum mechanics, the "invention of spatial parity as a quantum mechanical conserved quantity [I] [and the] introduction of the time inversion transformation in quantum mechanics [II]" (). "Wigner was invited to Göttingen in 1927 to become Hilbert's assistant. Hilbert, already interested in quantum mechanics, felt that he needed a physicist as an assistant to complement his own expertise. This was an important time for Wigner who produced papers of great depth and significance, introducing in his paper On the conservation laws of quantum mechanics (1927) [I] the new concept of parity" (). "Wigner performed pioneering work by studying such symmetries in the laws of motion for the electrons and had made important discoveries by investigating e.g., those symmetries which express the fact that the laws mentioned make no difference between left and right and that backward in time according to them is equivalent to forward in time. These investigations were extended by Wigner to the atomic nuclei at the end of the 1930s and he explored then also the newly discovered symmetry property of the force between two nucleons to be the same whether either of the nucleons is a proton or a neutron. This work by Wigner and his other investigations of the symmetry principles in physics are important far beyond nuclear physics proper. His methods and results have become an indispensable guide for the interpretation of the rich and complicated picture which has emerged from recent years' experimental research on elementary particles" Presentation speech for Wigner s Nobel Prize). "Wigner was a member of the race of giants that reformulated the laws of nature after the quantum mechanics revolution of 1924-25. In a series of papers on atomic and molecular structure, written between 1926 and 1928, Wigner laid the foundations for both the application of group theory to quantum mechanics and for the role of symmetry in quantum mechanics" (David J. Gross, Symmetry in Physics: Wigner s legacy, Physics Today, December 1995, pp. 46-50). Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles." "Nearly a decade after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Wigner s early group theory research was described as so farsighted that it was not immediately recognized for its importance as a pioneering advance in mathematical physics … The parity law states that particles emitted during a physical process should emanate from the left and right in equal numbers or equivalently that a nuclear process should be indistinguishable from its mirror image. The parity concept was not challenged until 1956 when it was disproved in certain so-called weak decay interactions in experiments by Tsung-Dao Lee of Columbia and Chen-Ning Yang of Princeton. Lee and Yang were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957 for their empirical refutation of Wigner s parity theory in this special case. The theory however remained substantially intact and along with other of Wigner s discoveries useful as a further guide in nuclear research" (DSB). "It is scarcely possible to overemphasize the role played by symmetry principles in quantum mechanics" (C. N. Yang, Nobel Lecture, p. 394). No copies on OCLC or RBH. Provenance: I. Felix Bloch (1905-83), Swiss-American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics with Edward Purcell for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements" ( Bloch written in ink on front wrapper). II. Ralph Kronig (1904-95), German physicist who first put forward the concept of electron spin ( Kronig written in pencil on front wrapper). The concept of parity refers to the behavior of classical and quantum systems under the inversion operation, w. Seller Inventory # 5976

Bibliographic Details

Title: I. Über die Erhaltungssätze in der ...

Publisher: Weidmann, Berlin

Publication Date: 1932

Edition: First edition.