Talk:Operator (physics)

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This article needs rewriting. I propose the following line: to explain first operators which carry out symmetry transformations on physical states: space-time translation, rotation, boosts, etc. Its role in field theory (both classical and quantum), and then the idea of "generator" and its relation to physical observables. A brief mention of representation theory would finish the trick... What do you think? Javirl 10:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. That's how most of my textbooks are laid out as far as I can remember. — Laura Scudder ☎ 16:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] physical state

I think one of two things should be done.

1, it should be made clearer what is meant in the first few sentences by "physical state", or

2, there should be a wiki link to an article that would make the above clearer.

[edit] Disambiguation Fix

Can someone with specific knowledge on this subject change the link from generator (in the concept of generator paragraph) to somewhere more appropriate. At a guess I would say its generating set of a group or maybe generator matrix thanks FlyHigh 14:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

it seems that it's better not to link at all. the (infinitesimal) generator of the group of dynamics, in functional analysis, is not the same as, say, the generators of a group, in combinatorial group theory. Mct mht 20:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)