Chapter 8
Solving Problems in Three Dimensions: Spherical Coordinates
In This Chapter
Problems in spherical coordinates
Free particles in spherical coordinates
Square well potentials
Isotropic harmonic oscillators
In your other life as a sea captain-slash-pilot, you’re probably pretty familiar with latitude and longitude — coordinates that basically name a couple of angles as measured from the center of the Earth. Put together the angle east or west, the angle north or south, and the all-important distance from the center of the Earth, and you have a vector that gives a good description of location in three dimensions. That vector is part of a spherical coordinate system.
Navigators talk more about the pair of angles than the distance (“Earth’s surface” is generally specific enough for them), but quantum physicists find both angles and radius length important. Some 3D quantum physics problems even allow you to break down a wave function into two parts: an angular part and a radial part.
In this chapter, I discuss three-dimensional problems that are best handled using spherical coordinates. ...
Get Quantum Physics For Dummies, Revised Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
