Time in classical and quantum mechanics

In this article we study the nature of time in Mechanics. The fundamental principle, according to which a mechanical system evolves governed by a second order differential equation, implies the existence of an absolute time-duration in the sense of Newton. There is a second notion of time for conservative systems which makes the Hamiltonian action evolves at a constant rate. In Quantum Mechanics the absolute time loses its sense as it does the notion of trajectory. Then, we propose two different ways to reach the time dependent Schrödinger equation. One way consists of considering a “time constraint” on a free system. The other way is based on the point of view of Hertz, by considering the system as a projection of a free system. In the later manner, the “time” appearing in the Schrödinger equation is a linear combination of the time-duration with the “time” quotient of the action by the energy on each solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Both of them are based on a rule of quantization that we explain in Section 4.