Re: Good starting quantum mechanics book?

Posted by Haelfix on July 10, 2002 at 22:52:56:

In Reply to: Good starting quantum mechanics book? posted by LakeMountD on July 09, 2002 at 22:53:20:

Nothing beats the Feynman lectures IMO. He introduces you to the central mystery of Quantum Mechanics right from the getgo, in such a manner even a laymen would understand. It justifies why physicists have to deal with all the subtle quantum weirdness, in such an unnintuitive manner.

Dirac notation and certain math based mostly on statitistics is also introduced early on, but not in a way that is really demanding mathematically.

It only gets tricky about 1/4 way through, where some notation starts getting a little archaic for a layman on the first time around, and takes a little time to actually play around with it before one gets the hang.

Shroedingers eqn doesn't make an appearance until much later, (which is also nice for a nonmathemitician, as solving those types of differential eqns is actually one of the harder problems in introductory QMs).

Regardless, I love the clarity of thought and how he starts from first principles. It makes it emminitely more easy than understanding other QM books, which kind of throw stuff at you in an ad hoc manner. I remember as an undergrad, just mindlessly plugging through the math, without much physical insight into what I was doing.

But then again, it will be hard to actually SOLVE problems with only a quick one through of Feynman's lectures. For that, another introductory book will be necessary.

(Report this post to the moderator)

Follow Ups: (Reload page to see most recent)

Post a Followup