Question 1.6: Why can’t you do integration-by-parts directly on the middle...

Why can’t you do integration-by-parts directly on the middle expression in Equation 1.29—pull the time derivative over onto x, note that ∂ x /∂ t = 0, and conclude that d\left\langle x\right\rangle /dt = 0 ?.

\frac{d\left\langle x\right\rangle }{dt} = \int{x \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \left|\Psi \right|^2 } dx = \frac{i \hbar }{2m} \int{x \frac{\partial}{\partial x}\biggl(\Psi ^*\frac{\partial \Psi }{\partial x} - \frac{\partial \Psi ^*}{\partial x} \Psi \biggr) } dx       (1.29).

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For integration by parts, the differentiation has to be with respect to the integration variable – in this case the differentiation is with respect to t, but the integration variable is x. It’s true that

\frac{∂}{∂t} (x \left|\Psi \right|^2 ) = \frac{∂ x}{∂t} \left|\Psi \right|^2 + x \frac{∂}{∂t} \left|\Psi \right|^2 = x \frac{∂}{∂t} \left|\Psi \right|^2 .

but this does not allow us to perform the integration:

\int_{a}^{b}{x \frac{∂}{∂t}\left|\Psi \right|^2}dx = \int_{a}^{b} {\frac{∂}{∂t}(x \left|\Psi \right|^2 )} dx ≠ (x \left|\Psi \right|^2 )\mid ^b_a .

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