Schrödinger's notebooks and the development of wave mechanics

Quantum mechanics was established in the 1920s as a foundational theory of modern physics involving substantial conceptual modifications compared to classical
physics. The research program aims at analyzing how these conceptual changes emerged from a transformation of the knowledge of classical physics. It focuses on the emergence of wave mechanics, studied on the basis of Schrödinger’s research notebooks as a conduit for the reinterpretation of key concepts of classical physics.

One central focus is the tension between Schrödinger’s own, rather conservative research program, and its revolutionary consequences. Indeed, while Schrödinger failed to realize his own ambitious research project of a relativistic theory of matter fields in a classical sense, he brought, with the help of unexploited potentials of classical physics such as the optical-mechanical analogy, the knowledge on quantum phenomena into a form which made it possible to develop a new, nonclassical understanding of material interactions describing matter with the help of a probabilistic wave field. 

This central insight shall be supported by new accounts of the prehistory and consequences of wave mechanics and of the complementary development of matrix mechanics. It will have to be shown, in particular, how both new experimental results and the borderline problems of classical physics challenged its conceptual foundation.