Canonical quantization has taught us great things. A common example is that of the harmonic oscillator, which is like swinging a ball on a string back and forth. However, the half-harmonic oscillator blocks the ball a...Canonical quantization has taught us great things. A common example is that of the harmonic oscillator, which is like swinging a ball on a string back and forth. However, the half-harmonic oscillator blocks the ball at the bottom and then it quickly bounces backwards. This second model cannot be correctly solved using canonical quantization. Now, there is an expansion of quantization, called affine quantization, that can correctly solve the half-harmonic oscillator, and offers correct solutions to a grand collection of other problems, which even reaches to field theory and gravity. This paper has been designed to introduce affine quantization: what it is, and what it can do.展开更多
文摘Canonical quantization has taught us great things. A common example is that of the harmonic oscillator, which is like swinging a ball on a string back and forth. However, the half-harmonic oscillator blocks the ball at the bottom and then it quickly bounces backwards. This second model cannot be correctly solved using canonical quantization. Now, there is an expansion of quantization, called affine quantization, that can correctly solve the half-harmonic oscillator, and offers correct solutions to a grand collection of other problems, which even reaches to field theory and gravity. This paper has been designed to introduce affine quantization: what it is, and what it can do.