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I'm working on a project covering Feynman's Path Integral Approach. I'm having trouble intuitively grasping what motivates the introduction of the expression $e^\frac{iS}{\hbar}$, where S is the action.

All the resources that I have seen (Feynman's book, 1948 article, Shankar's book) don't seem reason this assertion. They simply mention it as a postulate.

Can someone refer me to a good resource that explains the introduction of the term? I'm sure Feynman must have sound reasons to conclude that the complex number one is after has to be of this form!

Qmechanic
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Junaid Aftab
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    Possible duplicate: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/8663/2451 – Qmechanic May 15 '16 at 19:08
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    Alarmingly, Feynman does not emphasize in these 2 venues the fact that he learned about that very point in Dirac's stunning 1925 paper which introduces the action in QM: Dirac, P. A. M. "THE LAGRANGIAN IN QUANTUM MECHANICS, Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion, Band 3, Heft 1 (1933), pp. 64–72." (1933). Try to locate this one in reprint volumes. – Cosmas Zachos May 15 '16 at 19:23
  • E.g. http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Papers-Quantum-Electrodynamics-Schwinger/dp/0486604446 – Cosmas Zachos May 15 '16 at 20:44

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