ABSTRACT
Harmonic oscillators are important in physical applications and in demonstrating the working of the postulates of quantum formalism. A classical harmonic oscillator has a state space, i.e., its phase space, coordinated by the oscillator’s position x and momentum p. Observables correspond to real-valued functions on the state space. The evolution of the state is determined by Hamilton’s equations, which reduce to Eq. (27.12). The time dependence of the state automatically determines the time dependence of observables.
