Re: Something every sf writer should know


Daniel Silevitch wrote:

> Dirac certainly introduced the notation into quantum physics; I don't
> know whether he invented it (and the name) himself or whether some
> mathematician (Hilbert, perhaps?) was the actual inventor.

Here what Wikipedia has to say:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bra-ket_notation

"Bra-ket notation is the standard notation for describing quantum
states in the theory of quantum mechanics. It can also be used to
denote abstract vectors and linear functionals in pure mathematics. It
is so called because the inner product of two states is denoted by a
bracket, \langle\phi|\psi\rangle, consisting of a left part,
\langle\phi|, called the bra, and a right part, |\psi\rangle, called
the ket. The notation was invented by Paul Dirac, and is also known as
Dirac notation. It has recently become popular in quantum computing."

Mathematicians already had their own notations for this stuff, and
bra-ket notation, despite its elegance, is still not the standard,
though I think it is gaining ground.

.

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