Quantum Physics

Jan Hus

I'm looking for some senior undergraduate to graduate level textbooks on quantum mechanics. My major specification is only that there be many chapters with a few exercises at the end of each rather than a few chapters with many exercises at the end. They are for self-study, the more mathematical the better.

Morbert

QM Bible for undergrads/grads is

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Eugen-Merzbacher/dp/0471887021

krd

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Quantum-Mechanics-Second/dp/0071623582


A problem I am having (as one of many many in my life). Years ago, when I studied physics. I didn't do a complete Quantum Mechanics course - but I did a lot of the foundation - that includes the maths. But, now since I did not look at a maths equation for a very long time, I can't for the life of me remember how I did some of it (a lot of it) - it's in there somewhere but I need to do maths exercises to unlock it. I'm getting round to it.

Another problem I'm having, is looking at the equations in Quantum Mechanics. Is even though I can't do them - looking at texts, I haven't seen descriptions of what is so hot about particular equations - as in what do they predict. That an equation has solutions is fine as a mathematical curiosity, but so what - like getting a digital calculator to spell the word BOOBS. The texts I'm looking at are not showing me the physics.

I'd like a physics book with both the maths and the hand waving.

Justin1982

krd wrote: »

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Quantum-Mechanics-Second/dp/0071623582


A problem I am having (as one of many many in my life). Years ago, when I studied physics. I didn't do a complete Quantum Mechanics course - but I did a lot of the foundation - that includes the maths. But, now since I did not look at a maths equation for a very long time, I can't for the life of me remember how I did some of it (a lot of it) - it's in there somewhere but I need to do maths exercises to unlock it. I'm getting round to it.

Another problem I'm having, is looking at the equations in Quantum Mechanics. Is even though I can't do them - looking at texts, I haven't seen descriptions of what is so hot about particular equations - as in what do they predict. That an equation has solutions is fine as a mathematical curiosity, but so what - like getting a digital calculator to spell the word BOOBS. The texts I'm looking at are not showing me the physics.

I'd like a physics book with both the maths and the hand waving.

You probably want the Feynman lectures in Physics.

krd

Justin1982 wrote: »

You probably want the Feynman lectures in Physics.

Incredibly strange as this may sound. I actually studied physics (it wasn't a pure physics course, it was with electronics). We did the Schrodinger equation. To be honest I can't remember half the things, or less that I actually studied.

Just browsing through Schaum's Outline of Quantum Mechanics. I see bits that I recognise, and then other bits that .....that I don't.

I think what I could do with, is a few lectures with a good tutor, who can step through the equations, and answer questions.

I also need to a complete general maths revision. When you get out of practice, you can get stumped doing very literally childlike maths - I don't mean subtraction and division, I mean complex numbers, re-arranging equations etc. It's more of a "how the hell did I do that, again"

But a lecturer stepping through the equations would be good - and then answering what a particular set of equations tells us, and what its' limits are etc.

And yes, I am an idiot, but I'm not a complete and utter idiot. Okay, maybe I not absolutely sure about that either.

Turtwig

krd wrote: »

Incredibly strange as this may sound. I actually studied physics (it wasn't a pure physics course, it was with electronics). We did the Schrodinger equation. To be honest I can't remember half the things, or less that I actually studied.

Just browsing through Schaum's Outline of Quantum Mechanics. I see bits that I recognise, and then other bits that .....that I don't.

I think what I could do with, is a few lectures with a good tutor, who can step through the equations, and answer questions.

I also need to a complete general maths revision. When you get out of practice, you can get stumped doing very literally childlike maths - I don't mean subtraction and division, I mean complex numbers, re-arranging equations etc. It's more of a "how the hell did I do that, again"

But a lecturer stepping through the equations would be good - and then answering what a particular set of equations tells us, and what its' limits are etc.

And yes, I am an idiot, but I'm not a complete and utter idiot. Okay, maybe I not absolutely sure about that either.

A pure physics course would be mathematics.

If you can find it - and if it's still free- Oxford has an Introduction to Quantum Mechanics Course that is on iTunes U that is quite good. (Perhaps the only thing iTunes is good for but there ya go.)

This book doesn't really have too many exercises and serves, imo, as a nice intro.

Justin1982

By the way I've done a few advanced courses in QM and QFT in college, along with some sample questions with answers at the end of each week. So I fairly understood QM.
After college I sat down and read some of the books like Mersbacher and Peshkin and Schroeder for QFT. They really fail to give a good education in my opinion. Its all very formal and cold. Peshkin and Schroeder also made quantum jumps "pardon the pun" when moving from one line to another in working through a derivation or a proof.

krd

Jernal wrote: »

A pure physics course would be mathematics.

I did applied physics. Which is a different approach. But I can assure you, the knowledge you accumulate in an applied physics course is as equally as worthless as from a pure physics course.

I don't know if the pure mathematical approach is all that hot. I know people who studied electronics in Limerick, and they came out not knowing what a transistor looked like, or how to build a circuit. The electronic components were treated as operators and functions. The reality is, they're not (well they are, but they're not going to operate in reality like they do on paper). And that's why we use digital computers instead of analog ones.

Thanks for the advice on sources.

Turtwig

Well pure physics if you took me seriously sounds a bit like a 'No True Scotsman's Fallacy'. Applied Physics, worthless? I wouldn't regard any physics course as worthless. Graduates come out of tonnes of courses appearing grossly incompetent or having forgotten the stuff they might be expected to know. You'll see this is in everything from language to science. That doesn't mean a course is worthless. It might say the graduate didn't make the most of the opportunity that was afforded to them, but maybe they didn't like what they were studying? Maybe they didn't apply themselves? Maybe external circumstances interfered? Maybe many things. . I don't know. But, in any case, I certainly wouldn't regard any type of physics degree as worthless.

krd

Justin1982 wrote: »

After college I sat down and read some of the books like Mersbacher and Peshkin and Schroeder for QFT. They really fail to give a good education in my opinion. Its all very formal and cold.

I don't know if there are that many good books on it. The popular ones are just too simple - just don't really explain anything. And the more complicated ones require too much background to just jump in.

I'm only scratching at it, but I keep going back to Penrose's Road to Reality - a nice diagram or graph can show you a lot about an equation that just has you scratching your head. But even that is just giving me a better idea of the foundation I need to build. At the minute, the picture I'm getting, is quantum mechanics is a natural progression of 19th century statistical thermodynamics. Which means I have to review 19th century statistical thermodynamics.

Peshkin and Schroeder also made quantum jumps "pardon the pun" when moving from one line to another in working through a derivation or a proof.

This is one, of a few, things, that always annoys me about mathematicians. The formalism, and minimalism they use. There isn't really anything wrong with going over the basics again, and again, to exhaustion. There's a strong possibility, that people may be able to perform the functions, answer exam questions, and even teach, without really understanding what the maths does.

And leaving steps out in a theorem, is just playing "gotcha!!"

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