Schrödinger's work on wave mechanics in 1926 appears to have been driven by the idea that one could give a purely wave-theoretical description of matter. Key elements in this picture were the idea of particles as wave packets (Section 4.3) and the possible implications for the problem of radiation (Section 4.4). This pure wave theory, in contrast to de Broglie's work, did away with the idea of particle trajectories altogether (Section 4.5). The main conflict, however, was between Schrödinger and the proponents of quantum mechanics (in particular Heisenberg, Section 4.6), both in its form at the time of Schrödinger's papers and in its further developments as sketched in the previous chapter.

For reference, we provide a brief chronology of Schrödinger's writings relating to wave mechanics up to the Solvay conference:

• Paper on Einstein's gas theory, submitted 15 December 1925, published 1 March 1926 (Schrödinger 1926a).

• First paper on quantisation, submitted 27 January 1926, addendum in proof 28 February 1926, published 13 March 1926 (Schrödinger 1926b).

• Second paper on quantisation, submitted 23 February 1926, published 6 April 1926 (Schrödinger 1926c).

• Paper on the relation between wave and matrix mechanics (‘equivalence paper’), submitted 18 March 1926, published 4 May 1926 (Schrödinger 1926d).

• Paper on micro- and macromechanics (coherent states for the harmonic oscillator), published 9 July 1926 (Schrödinger 1926e).

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