Product Description
Provides comprehensive coverage of all the fundamentals of quantum physics. Full mathematical treatments are given. Uses examples from different areas of physics to demonstrate how theories work in practice. Text derived from lectures delivered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 13 reviews)

Quantum Basics

As one of the other reviewers pointed out, Chapter 6 and 7 are worth the price of the book itself and it continues right on with Chapter 8, you might choose another introduction book where they start off with mathematical mania but you can get lost in the math and wonder what your actually trying to calculate, however this book shows pictures of photons going through Polaroid film and explains the basic concepts in terms that everyone should find acceptable with losses due to Polaroid film; hey we all have sunglasses. Other books are well written and chunk out the math, but this book shows you simple hands on experiments and the way the math applies. I have dozens of books on quantum physics, but I would recommend this book as the first book to read out there, plus you can go to MIT's website and do the free OpenWare classes for more important information. Additionally, the LHC is still using the same theories to search for particles based on these same simple basic concepts presented here back in the 70's, you might not have a high energy particle accelerator in your backyard, but you can get some Polaroid film without any problems.
September 07, 2008

Good Secondary Resource

This book should seriously be used ONLY with another text. A good one (in my opinion) is Griffiths. It goes into great depth (sometimes too much) conceptually and is very weak with the mathematics. Another reviewer said somethings about not giving many applications, and i agree. It gets the idea down, but no more than that. Griffiths along side this is awesome, and if you have time after those two, take a look at Shakars book; its a little harder mathematically, but if you hit those three together, youll prolly have a good idea of what QM is about. Feynman Lectures also help.
Point being: Dont use this book alone, very good otherwise.
December 23, 2003

Better than most

Although I would agree that this is probably the best book to begin your study of quantum mechanics with, there are still serious flaws with the book. I just finished taking a class that used this text and I found that a major problem is that it never actually 'get's to the point.' Instead of telling you how to apply a technique to solving problems, the text simply assumes that you'll be able to figure that out yourself. So much of the notation goes unexplained and important points go unemphasized. I would suggest using this book if you're a first time student of quantum mechanics but supplement it with another book that explains how to do problems (Liboff or Griffiths).
December 21, 2003

Great treatment of basic topics

Several of the other reviews here express my general, very positive feelings about this book, so I'll concentrate on two specific examples which illustrate the teaching emphasis of the book's authors.

Chapters 6 and 7 introduce quantum states with a brilliant discussion of Dirac's bracket notation using polarization of light as the driving example. The student at this level typically already knows what to expect when, for example, linearly polarized light passes through a linear analyzer oriented at an angle with respect to the polarization axis. The authors develop a set of projection amplitudes for linear and circular polarization which reproduce the results familiar to the student. This makes state vectors easy to understand and, in turn, it's much easier to learn and accept the less intuitive results which come from solving more complex problems later on. I would recommend this book for these two chapters alone.

In Chapter 9 the authors in just a few pages develop a simple but quantitative theory of alpha decay which is easy to follow and relates half-life (or decay constant) to alpha-particle energy with no adjustable parameters. They then compare their result to experiment and show agreement over 24 orders of magnitude of half-life. This example wonderfully illustrates the power of simple, clear reasoning to achieve a widely applicable result. Fantastic job!

I own three or four introductory quantum mechanics texts, but this is the one I turn to first.
May 02, 2003

Easy to read and really focuses on the Physics

OK, so this book is old, having been written in the 1970s. For all that, it still does the core things excellently: namely focus on the Physics, the experiments, the theory, AND the people behind the advances.

After going through the antecedents of the classical atomic model, the authors quickly move onto the wave-particle duality. They describe, throughout, groundbreaking experimental work of the likes of Thompson and Davisson & Germer. After setting the foundations, French and Taylor go to the discussion of the one dimensional Schrodinger equation, its physical meaning, and several examples of solutions by means of qualitative plots.

Photons and Quantum States, Angular momentum, Atomic Systems, a detailed discussion of the Hydrogen atom and Radiation from atoms make up the rest of the book.

What I particularly like about this book is that it is grounded in the Physics, with experiment and theory given an equal footing. The authors are gentle with their use of mathematics. The concept of operators is applied to the physical problem. This, despite what to some people would be the book's "old fashioned" nature, is refreshing. Too often, the authors of modern books on Quantum Physics "pose" with fancy mathematics to try to impress their colleagues or students.

This book is easy to read, there are plenty of worked examples and end of chapter exercises to keep the student busy. I recommend this book thoroughly.
November 26, 2002

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Special Relativity (M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series)
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Vibrations and Waves (M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series)
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Newtonian Mechanics (M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series)
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Quantum Physics
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Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles
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