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What is the Periodic Table Showing? Periodicity

The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables

There are thousands of periodic tables in web space, but this is the only comprehensive database of periodic tables & periodic system formulations. If you know of an interesting periodic table that is missing, please contact the database curator: Mark R. Leach Ph.D. The database holds information on periodic tables, the discovery of the elements, the elucidation of atomic weights and the discovery of atomic structure (and much, much more).

   Use the drop menus or search box (below) to Select or Search the 1400 entries in the database: 

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Year:  1928 PT id = 1378, Type = structure

Dirac Equation

Dirac, P. A. M. (1928). "The Quantum Theory of the Electron". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 117 (778): 610–624. PDF of paper.

Wikipedia:

"The Dirac equation is a relativistic wave equation derived by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. In its free form, or including electromagnetic interactions, it describes all spin-?1/2? massive particles, called Dirac particles, such as electrons and quarks for which parity is a symmetry. It is consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity and was the first theory to fully account for special relativity in the context of quantum mechanics. The equation is validated by its rigorous accounting of the observed fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum and has become vital in the building of the Standard Model pf particle physics.

"The equation also implied the existence of a new form of matter, antimatter, previously unsuspected and unobserved. The existence of antimatter was experimentally confirmed several years later. It also provided a theoretical justification for the introduction of several component wave functions in Pauli's phenomenological theory of spin. The wave functions in the Dirac theory are vectors of four complex numbers (known as bispinors), two of which resemble the Pauli wavefunction in the non-relativistic limit, in contrast to the Schrödinger equation, which described wave functions of only one complex value."

If you require deeper dive into quantum spin and the Dirac equation, these two linked videos by Physics Explained will be of interest. The videos discuss the history and the mathematics of the equation. The videos show that the Dirac formulation of the relativistic electron inevitably has four answers or solutions which correspond to the:


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What is the Periodic Table Showing? Periodicity

© Mark R. Leach Ph.D. 1999 –


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