From Maupertuis to Schrodinger. Quantization of classical variational principles

In his first paper on wave mechanics, Schrodinger presented a heuristic arg ument which led from the Hamilton-Jacobi equation through the quantum varia tional principle to his famous wave equation. In his second paper, Schrodin ger withdrew this heuristic argument as "incomprehensible.'' We show by usi ng a recently generalized form of Maupertuis' principle that Schrodinger's original heuristic argument can be made more logical. Aside from pedagogica l interest, this path is useful as a method of quantization of general mech anical systems. (C) 1999 American Association of Physics Teachers.