Werner Heisenberg the first to reinterpret the Dirac equation as a "classical" field equation for any point particle of spin ħ/2, itself subject to quantization conditions involving anti-commutators. Thus reinterpreting it as a (quantum) field equation accurately describing electrons, Heisenberg put matter on the same footing as electromagnetism: as being described by relativistic quantum field equations which allowed the possibility of particle creation and destruction. (Hermann Weyl had already described this in a 1929 letter to Albert Einstein.) Heisenberg's paper establishing quantum mechanics has puzzled physicists and historians. His methods assume that the reader is familiar with Kramers-Heisenberg transition probability calculations. The
Heisenberg picture line above is the Heisenberg Hamiltonian "H"("t"), which may differ from the Schrödinger Hamiltonian. An important special case of the equation above is obtained if the Hamiltonian does not vary with time. Then the time-evolution operator can be written as Therefore, and, Here ∂"A"/∂"t" is the time derivative of the initial "A", not the "A"("t") operator defined. The last equation holds since commutes with . If the Hamiltonian does not vary with time, then the time-evolution operator can be written as where is the Hamiltonian and is the reduced Planck constant. Therefore, Thus and hence emerges the above Heisenberg equation