Quantum Mechanics in Simple Matrix Form Book

Plus:

The math is *in theory* relatively basic. There's no calculus or differential equations or eigenvectors or any of the revolting mathematics that goes beyond that. This is entirely matrix algebra, and how it can be used to understand quantum mechanics. In particular, the first few chapters provide an excellent review of basic math (complex numbers, matrix operations, etc.) for people who aren't familiar or who have forgotten certain topics. Naturally, problem sets are included at the end of each chapter.

Minus:

For one, the book assumes an engaged and motivated audience. There's no good explanation of the background of quantum mechanics, why it's important, how it relates to other branches of knowledge, what it's used for - we just plunge right into imaginary numbers. As implied by the title, the book combines the excitement of matrix algebra with the real-world relevance and practicality of quantum mechanics. If you didn't roll out of bed in the morning thinking "Boy oh boy, here I go learning quantum mechanics!" as your new-years resolution, then this is not the book for you.

This is further compounded by the lack of experiments, diagrams, or even a clear explanation of the physical realities that the book is focused on - it is rather interesting to write a physics book with nothing physical. There's certainly no glossary or answer key or anything helpful like that. For example, the first physics chapter begins "The Pauli Matrices are used to represent the spin angular momentum or magnetic moment of an electron . . ." When I read this line I sighed, uncorked a bottle of wine, and started looking up stuff on Wikipedia - this was clearly going to be one of *those* books.

Finally, there is not only no answer key but also generally no worked examples of the sorts of problems that showed up. My solutions certainly made sense to me, but I have no way of knowing if I did them right or if I somehow learned whole chapters wrong.

This book definitely assumes that the reader is motivated to read an abstract text on quantum mechanics, confident in their math abilities, and has a strong enough physics background that they understand the basics already. I think most people (myself included) would be better served choosing a more accessible text.