In physics, the Heisenberg picture is a formulation (made by Werner Heisenberg while on Heligoland in the 1920s) of quantum mechanics in which the operators (observables and others) incorporate a dependency on time, but the state vectors are time-independent. It stands in contrast to the Schrödinger picture in which the operators are constant and the states evolve in time. The two models only differ by a basis change with respect to time-dependency, which is the difference between active and passive transformation. The Heisenberg picture is the formulation of matrix mechanics in an arbitrary basis, in which the Hamiltonian is not necessarily diagonal.
Read more about Heisenberg Picture: Mathematical Details, Deriving Heisenberg's Equation, Commutator Relations
Famous quotes containing the word picture:
“You should go to picture-galleries and museums of sculpture to be acted upon, and not to express or try to form your own perfectly futile opinion. It makes no difference to you or the world what you may think of any work of art. That is not the question; the point is how it affects you. The picture is the judge of your capacity, not you of its excellence; the world has long ago passed its judgment upon it, and now it is for the work to estimate you.”
—Anna C. Brackett (18361911)