January 10 class notes: our first degeneracy manifold.

Here is a summary of our Thursday, Jan 10 class.  The key thing about this class is not so much that we looked at a few states associated with the 2DHO, but rather that we encountered and began to explore our first degeneracy manifold.

One can easily miss the forest while focusing on the trees, so let me try to summarize the essence of what we have done so far this quarter:
     1) Examined the nature of a few low-energy quantum bound states (for an electron in a HO or an inf. sq. well potential),
     2) Looked at quantum time dependence (in the context of a mixed state),
     3) Encountered a degeneracy manifold (in the context of a 2DHO).

Everything we are doing now is part of a foundation for what we will learn and explore later in the quarter.