Reviews for Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods, Vol. 72

The average rating for Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods, Vol. 72 based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-12-11 00:00:00 Joseph Anthony My very old Amazon.com review: This is such a great book that I've taken the time to prepare an annotated table of contents for this review: CONTENTS (very thorough - shows where all the sub-sections are) PREFACE (Begins with examples of "Quantum Mechanics in action". Here is a quote which I hope illuminates the author's sensitivity towards your desire come away from reading this with a sense of it's friendliness: "Physics is not difficult; it's just weird. Physics, contrary to the opinion of many journalists and parents of scientists, is not particularly hard to explain or to learn. To learn how to use relativity, you do not have to be Einstein; nor do you have to be Heisenberg to do Quantum Mechanics. Physics is weird because your intuition is false. To understand what an electron's world is like, you've got to be an electron, or jolly nearly." Here are a few more points Icke makes before setting out on this wonderful journey of discovery: "Physics is powerful.", "Physics is beautiful.", "Physics is simplification, and so is explanation... This is the real stuff, even though there is a two-semester lecture series of heavy technical material behind every chapter. In fact, it is my intention that you could read this book right alongside a textbook on gauge theory." I believe that, before you've finished this book, you will have happily come to the conclusion that this author has delivered a well-prepared & friendly presentation of his points in the above thesis. INTRODUCTION 1. A MATTER OF FORCE (The speed of light, Relativity and fields, vector, scalar & tensor fields, Feynman diagrams, Fermions & Bosons) 2. STALKING THE WILD RAINBOW 3. LIGHT (Waves of light, Huygen's principle, Interference, Standing waves, Photons, The equation of motion, momentum - kinetic & potential energies and their conservation, and finally `action'.) 4. MAYBE I'M HEISENBERG (De Broglie length, Planck's constant, amplitudes, waves and Uncertainty relations, complementary, conjugate variables/operators, Quanta, dispersion and probability.) 5. CATCH A FALLING QUANTUM (Indeterminacy, linear superposition, interference terms, and "Where does the electron go?") 6. QUANTUM BEANBAGS (One of my favorite chapters. The first part, 6.1 "A muddy wheel", gives a clever analogy which helps you comprehend the concepts of complex numbers & probability amplitudes. The next section, 6.2 "The importance of having phase" looks just like Feynman's "QED - the Strange Theory of Light and Matter" with the same types of illustrations. The very next section is titled "Feynman Paths" and brilliantly elucidates 'Action' and `field density'; the last section, 6.4 "Superposition and quantum sorcery", brings to light principles of second quantization, state vectors, eigenstates & eigenvalues. The chapter finishes with a nice metaphor for Rotation and hints of Dirac's `ket' & `bra' notation.) 7. SYMMETRIES (quantum numbers, Rydberg equation, Groups and rotations, rotation & translation groups, Invariance and angular momentum, Noether's theorem, angular momentum and uncertainty, and three dimensional rotations.) 8. QUANTUM RELATIVITY: NOTHING IS RELATIVE (Rotations in space, "The light cone -our compass in space-time", time dilation, the Lorentz transformation, Antimatter, pair creation & annihilation, "The dizzy world of spin", precession, "Spin and relativity", "The quantum of spin", Polarization, vector & tensor particles, vector bosons, handedness and helicity.) 9. LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING (the "Anatomy of an atom", "Atomic symmetry", "Quantization produces chemistry" - the periodic table, "The molecules of life", and "Quantization and genetic coding".) 10. THE PHYSICS OF A TABLECLOTH ("Gauge twists and velpons", the electromagnetic field - QED, phase, isospin, Yang-Mills fields, and gravity.) 11. COLOUR ME RED, GREEN AND BLUE (the colour field, Mesons & baryons, and pions.) 12. SMASHING SYMMETRY (sections on Weak decay, Velpons, symmetry breaking, the electroweak force, and `Charm'.) 13. HOW MUCH IS INFINITY MINUS INFINITY? (Renormalization, `dressed' vs. `naked electrons'; vacuum & charge polarization; the `Global behavior of electromagnetism', Coulomb's law, the magnetic moment, and the weak & colour forces.) 14. EXCELSIOR! The ascent to infinity (Contains sections on Grand Unification -with a nice a bit on the `fine structure constant'; Supersymmetry, The Planck scale, and ending on Superstrings with Kaluza-Klein Theories.) "A MODEST READING PROPOSAL" (The last chapter. This is a golden opportunity to take up the author's challenge for "do it yourself" verification and to expand your knowledge by reading & learning.) REFERENCES GLOSSARY (This is one of the features of the book which makes it particularly sweet! It's not just any glossary, it has a couple of pages introducing the concept of what it means to define words in physics -e.g. what's the difference between a mathematical and an everyday linguistic definition? The words in the main body of the book appear in a conspicuous font signaling you that they can be found in the glossary. The page numbers for the words that are defined in the glossary are cross-referenced to the sections of the main text where you can locate the context that they are used in.) INDEX (exceptionally complete!) Of interest to this reviewer are the copious illustrated diagrams that helped me to get a picture in my mind of the subject at hand. I am grateful to the author for leading me along a pedagogically sane path towards a deep understanding of the material. This book is the kind of book that, if I were to have achieved a lifelong goal, I would die happy knowing that I'd written it! Nonetheless I am extremely pleased to have merely read it!

Review # 2 was written on 2009-09-02 00:00:00 Steve Hern�ndez Very enlightening and new ideas are injected in, such as the idea of different rotational observation in different frames.