Statistical Description of Nonrelativistic Classical Systems

Abstract

We prove that any nonrelativistic classical system must obey a statistical wave equation that is exactly the same as the Schr ö dinger equation for the system, including the usual “canonical quantization” and Hamiltonian operator, provided an unknown constant is set equal to . We show why the two equations must have exactly the same sets of solutions, whereby this classical statistical theory (CST) and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics may differ only in their interpretations of the same quantitative results. We identify some of the different interpretations. We show that the results also imply nonrelativistic Lagrangian classical mechanics and the associated Newtonian laws of motion. We prove that the CST applied to a nonrelativistic rigid rotator yields spin angular momentum operators that obey the quantum commutation rules and allow both integer and half-odd-integer spin. We also note that the CST applied to systems of identical massive particles is mathematically equivalent to nonrelativistic quantum field theory for those particles.