ess number of difficult questions about quantum mechanics that can be discussed.

But in this
short introduction to the subject, let’s just accept Schrodinger’s equation as valid, and see
where it takes us. Solving the equation If we put aside the profound implications of the
Schrodinger equation and regard it as simply a mathematical equation, then it’s just another
wave equation. We already know the solution, of course, because we used the function ψ(x, t) =
Aei(kx−ωt) to produce Eqs. (5) and (6) in the first place. But let’s pretend that we don’t know
this, and let’s solve the Schrodinger equation as if we were given it out of the blue. As always,
we’ll guess an exponential solution. If we first look at exponential behavior in the time
coordinate, our guess is ψ(x, t) = e −iωtf(x) (the minus sign here is convention). Plugging this
into Eq. (7) and canceling the e −iωt yields ¯hωf(x) = − ¯h 2 2m ∂ 2f(x) ∂x2 + V (x)f(x). (8) But
from Eq. (1), we have ¯hω = E. And we’ll now replace f(x) with ψ(x). This might cause a little
confusion, since we’ve already used ψ to denote the entire wavefunction ψ(x, t). However, it is
general convention to also use the letter ψ to denote the spatial part. So we now have E ψ(x) =
− ¯h 2 2m ∂ 2ψ(x) ∂x2 + V (x)ψ(x) (9) This is called the time-independent Schrodinger equation.
This equation is more restrictive than the original time-dependent Schrodinger equation,
because it assumes that the particle/wave has a definite energy (that is, a definite ω). In
general, a particle can be in a state that is the superposition of states with various definite
energies, just like the motion of a 6 CHAP