Product Description

Product Description
This book first teaches learners how to do quantum mechanics, and then provides them with a more insightful discussion of what it means. Fundamental principles are covered, quantum theory presented, and special techniques developed for attacking realistic problems.The book's two-part coverage organizes topics under basic theory, and assembles an arsenal of approximation schemes with illustrative applications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (113)

It's a book
The book came in a good amount of time for use. It was a little more beat up than expected, but it's a book and it works just fine as a book. The author is very good. A little dry though. I like my physics with a good amount of humor.

Never received it
I sent a message to Infinity Book Store inquiring on the status of the delivery when I didn't receive my item after nine days. I sent several e-mails, and each time they told me to wait a few more days. Well, after a month, I requested a refund. Let's see how long this will take. Apparently they don't call themselves Infinity for nothing! What upsets me the most is that I lost valuable study time.

Very good introductory book
I used it for a basic QM class. This book is very clearly written, well understandable. Problems are almost solvable. If you follow the class this book will help you.

Sent international edition instead of US edition pictured
The book was in good condition but was not the edition I expected to receive.I expected the US edition and instead got the international edition--not the same quality of binding or printing.

OK intro to QM
This is a pretty decent introduction to QM.Not many prereqs are assumed which is good.Ch. 4 is organized a bit strangely (angular momentum is presented after the hydrogen atom).However, you will probably have to read a more advanced book to move on to QFT. ... Read more

Product Description
'An excellent text....The postulates of quantum mechanics and the mathematical underpinnings are discussed in a clear, succint manner.'--American Scientist, from a review of the First Edition The author introduces major additions and updates key presentations in the long-awaited new edition of this classic text. New features of the Second Edition include an entirely rewritten mathematical introduction, a discussion of Time-reversal invariance, and extensive coverage of a variety of path integrals and their applications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (64)

Outstanding Textbook for a QM Class
I was fortunate to have a professor use this book for a QM class! Although I don't "understand" QM, this text was the one that allowed me to solve homework problems, gain insight into the theory, and prepare me for field theory classes. Mandel & Shaw was a seamless transition from this text and I am glad my professor chose this book. Grad or undergrad, this QM book will help you more than you realize.

Chapter one is amazing -- all the math prep you need for the rest of the book. Few books can brag about such a feat but Shankar can! Good treatment of Dirac and statistics rivaled by few QM books. The homework problems are carefully selected and make for a challenging class.

Quantum mechanics
I will make it real simple. It has been over a half of a year since I bought this book. When I first got it, it seemed really hard, you have to really read this book line for line. With the help of scham's outline, quantum mechanics and quantum mechanics demystified I got through it without a teacher. It now seems real easy and I cannot understand why I had trouble. One review says it breaks down after chapter seven. Well it does not. Only after I started doing quantum field theory did I start to understand why this book is written the way it is. Plain and simple this book prepares you for QFT. All other Quantum Mechanics books seem easy after going through this book. Only after doing QFT do some of the chapters in this book now make sense. The chapters starting with 10 are a preparation for QFT. A good Physics book is one that prepares one to go on to harder subjects. This book does just that. Read it slow and understand it step by step, I had to re-read some chapters 3-4 times. You need strong linear algebra and partial differential equations skills. Go on youtube MIT offers linear algebra and differential equations courses, free. OFT is hard but this book paved the way. You have to derive the equations along with the author and fill in the missing steps to really get the most from this book. Good luck, not really just really hard work.

The best graduate level quantum text
This is by far the best graduate level quantum textbook available.The information is very clear, and the book is easy to read.I would say that an undergraduate course using Griffiths and a graduate course using Shankar will give you all the quantum you'll ever need (for most physicists).This book is also a great reference text.I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants/needs to learn quantum mechanics at the graduate level.

Excellent for Self Study
As other reviewers have remarked this is an excellent book, and if you are interested in really learning quantum mechanics, this is where I'd recommend you start.

Here are some of the things I particularly liked about this book, and some of the ways I thought it could have been better.

The first chapter provides the necessary mathematical background for quantum mechanics. It is a long chapter, but very well done. Regardless, make no mistake, you should not attempt this book at all without a solid background in differential equations and linear algebra. This chapter is very helpful though as a review and for fixing notation. I also approved of its stated goal: to put the math first rather than trying to interleave it with the physics. Physics is hard enough without trying to tackle the math and the physics at the same time.

Chapter two is a quick review of classical mechanics. Advanced classical mechanics. If you are not already comfortable with the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics before you attempt this book, well you probably shouldn't attempt this book. But if you are, this chapter is an excellent and concise review done with an eye towards quantum mechanics.

Chapter four presents quantum mehcanics in a postulatory manner, and builds the subject deductively from there. Of the quantum mechanics books I've read, the ones that proceed in this fashion tend to be clearest, and this one is no exception.

Chapter five presents a collection of one dimensional problems. This chapter is one of the few that I felt could have been better. I did not think there was enough discussion of tunneling and scattering, which struck me as odd. Certainly I have seen other introductions to quantum mechanics do a better job with these topics.

Chapter ten is on systems with more degrees of freedom and covers the tricky subject of identical particles in quantum mechanics. It is a very clear treatment.

Chapters twelve and thirteen extend the treatment to three dimensional systems and the Hydrogen atom in particular. While good, I thought the author could have done a better job building intuition for the special functions that appear in this section of the book, like the spherical harmonics. The author even states that many other books provide graphs and additional information for these very important functions. Ok, so why not this one as well? For a book that is so complete in so many other ways, this omission seemed odd.

Chapters fourteen and fifteen cover spin and the addition of angular momentum. Challenging topics in quantum mechanics. For the most part the discussion is very lucid, and among the best I've seen.

Chapters sixteen through eigthteen cover approximation methods. They are superb. Chapter eighteen is a particular standout here. The discussion of the quantization of the electromagnetic field is outstanding, and very unusual in an introductory book.

Chapter nineteen is on scattering, and is probably the clearest introduction to this (rather tricky) subject I have seen.

Chapter twenty is on the Dirac equation. Almost never seen in an introductory book, this is again an outstanding feature of this work.

Finally, as other reviewers have mentioned, this book discusses path integrals in two chapters: eight and twenty-one. These discussions are five star worthy. This topic is also highly unusual in an introductory book, but as the author points out it is of central importance in contemporary physics.

The last chapter -- twenty-one -- is definitely the most advanced in the book. It disusses the Quantum Hall Effect, the imaginary time formalism, the connections between quantum mechanics, quantum statistical mechanics, and classical statistical mechanics via path integrals, and ends with discussion of fermionic path integrals which are central to quantum field theory. All of these are advanced topics, and the author does an excellent job preparing the reader to tackle them. Kudos!

There are numerous problems throughout, most of which are rather simple.

This is an excellent book for anyone looking really to sink their teeth into QM.

.....Better -> Best -> This book!!!
Neils Bohr once said : "if you are not shocked by quantum physics, you don't understand it." . And here is the promise: read the book and you get nothing less than a 20000 Volt DC....One in a million of its kind. The author looks to have penned down questions/problems that he faced while studying quantum mechanics.. Read the complete book and every question of yours would be answered..Scattering theory though could have been a bit better..Overall, this book could be compared to the works of Feynman and Kramer.. ... Read more

Product Description

Tough Test Questions? Missed Lectures? Not Enough Time?

Fortunately for you, there's Schaum's.

More than 40 million students have trusted Schaum's to help them succeed in the classroom and on exams. Schaum's is the key to faster learning and higher grades in every subject. Each Outline presents all the essential course information in an easy-to-follow, topic-by-topic format. You also get hundreds of examples, solvedproblems, and practice exercises to test your skills.

This Schaum's Outline gives you

• Hundreds of examples with explanations of quantum mechanics concepts
• Exercises to help you test your mastery of quantum mechanics
• Complete review of all course fundamentals

Fully compatible with your classroom text, Schaum's highlights all the important facts you need to know. Use Schaum's to shorten your study time--and get your best test scores!

Topics include: Mathematical Background; Schrodinger Equation and Applications; Foundations of Quantum Mechanics; Harmonic Oscillator; Angular Momentum; Spin; Hydrogen-Like Atoms; Particle Motion in an Electromagnetic Field; Solution Methods in Quantum Mechanics; Solutions Methods in Quantum Mechanics; Numerical Methods in Quantum Mechanics; Identical Particles; Addition of Angular Momenta; Scattering Theory; and Semiclassical Treatment of Radiation

Schaum's Outlines--Problem Solved.

Product Description

As Kenneth W. Ford shows us in The Quantum World, the laws governing the very small and the very swift defy common sense and stretch our minds to the limit. Drawing on a deep familiarity with the discoveries of the twentieth century, Ford gives an appealing account of quantum physics that will help the serious reader make sense of a science that, for all its successes, remains mysterious. In order to make the book even more suitable for classroom use, the author, assisted by Diane Goldstein, has included a new section of Quantum Questions at the back of the book. A separate answer manual to these 300+ questions is available; visit The Quantum World website for ordering information.

There is also a cloth edition of this book, which does not include the "Quantum Questions" included in this paperback edition.

Customer Reviews (31)

Poorly edited
This book isn't poorly organized or written, it just hasn't had the rough edges smoothed out. It has some continuity problems in building the framework for the reader to place ideas into context, undefined terms, etc. Its not bad (and it is very basic), but there are probably better ones out there.

Exactly what I wanted
I am a science-ee kind of guy. I graduated collage 6 years ago with electrical and comp sci emphasis. I always had an interest in quantum sciences but never studied any. This book fit the bill very well for me. It's quite technical, but in a "I'm not in collage anymore" kind of way. There are a few equations, but it is not necessary to do any of them. They are there more for making points, or proofs. This book does a great job of introducing you to all the different particles, kinds of radioactive decay, etc... in a logical order, in an easy to read, friendly language. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Quantum World For Dummies :) My point is that your granny or pappy could read it and get the jist of it's content, with some thought (if it didn't bore them too much).

Also, in reading it, I also came across explanations for things I've known all my life, but never thought about why. EX: Why heavy elements decay. Particles are so empty... they are all made of "nothing", mostly empty space.

Highly recommend! I haven't been this invested in a book since the last awesome book I read...... um... yep.

More than a popular book
The book is great. Fundamental ideas of the quantum mechanics are explained in plain, clear and concise language. I think the book can be useful to undergraduate students who take a course on modern physics or a basic quantum mechanics course. I read "The Quantum World" in parallel with University Physics and Modern Physics and found this reading very enjoyable. But as a popular reading this book may be rather complicated. To people who don't have a relevant background in physics, before starting this book I would recommend "Warped passages" by Lisa Randall or "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene.

Review of 'The Quantum World'
Although the title suggests otherwise, this book is not intended for everyone. For that, it is too specific. That's why I expected a book which is a little more thorough. The collapse of the wave function is not treated at all for instance and the concept of wave function is only mentioned a few times, while it is one of the most mysterious items in quantum mechanics.

The part about the elementary particles is ok, the same holds for the treatment about symmetry and conservation laws.

All in all it's an entertaining book. But it remains too superficial to really give new insights.

Excellent introduction to the subject
I loved this book from start to finish. The material is fascinating and presented clearly, in easy-to-digest form. In terms of the reader's assumed knowledge, this book doesn't aim for the *lowest* common denominator. Some familiarity with first-year algebra is helpful, but not essential; the concepts generally stand on their own without any mathematics at all. Ford also explains the experiments that led to many aspects of the standard model, particularly from earlier developments. This helps the reader appreciate the evidence physicists were weighing in their attempts to piece together the puzzle. If anything, I would have appreciated more details on these experiments. But, for a quick introduction to the topic, this book does a fine job balancing the information and does an exceptional job getting the reader to visualize concepts. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Good
Softcover, with the front cover a little curled. The overall quality is fine, and the content is without doubt worth reading.

classic
This is a classic on path integrals by one of the founders of the subject, finally in Dover edition.

Return of a classic
It is wonderful to see this extraordinary work back in print, especially in this attractive low cost Dover edition.As an added bonus, the myriad misprints that plagued the original 1965 printing (and caused me such grief when I first read it in high school) have been corrected.

The path integral approach, so clearly explained in this volume, derived from Feynman's graduate research at Princeton where he applied variational principles to quantum mechanics.This, in turn, was motivated by a seminal 1932 paper of Dirac.

At the time, the formalism appeared to provide only an elegant means of deriving the wave equation without achieving any new results.But elegant mathematics always seems to have a way of finding application in physics.Just look at how formerly "obscure" topics like Lie algebras and differential geometry have become part of the essential language of particle physics.And path integral methods have proved useful in fields ranging from quantum electrodynamics to acoustic propagation.

Like all of Feynman's works, this text combines sound, if unconventional, mathematics with remarkable physical insight.There is still no better introduction to the topics treated here.This book is required reading for anyone wishing to understand quantum mechanics (at least in so far as anyone can understand quantum mechanics) and who intends to pursue more advanced topics.

Heartily recommended!

If you liked volumes I and II of the Lectures...
The Feynman Lectures deserve their status as classics, bringing novel insights and clarity even to topics that one would think ancient and musty (e.g. his exposition of radio waves). I'm not sure I would recommend them as undergraduate texts, since there may be too much wizardry where the solutions depend on deep insights or unexpected symmetries, with perhaps too few examples of brute calculation and no exercises to be worked by the student. However, they are unsurpassed when used to supplement the usual treatments or just to appreciate the beauty of the subject. For some reason, I never had the same feeling toward Volume III (Quantum Mechanics). In part, I think this is because he was trying too hard to reconcile the usual Schroedinger description with his own version of Quantum Mechanics, namely the least action/ path integral approach used in this text. Without the same constraint here (although he does very elegantly derive the wave equation from the least action principle), I experienced the same sense of wonder and awe that I felt from his earlier treatment of mechanics and electricity/magnetism. Although it's only my personal opinion, I would recommend this as the true successor to volumes I and II of the Lectures.

A must have for anyone interested in Particle Physics or String Theory
It is a gospel for all physics students that this masterpiece is finally available as a Dover edition. Written by Feynman himself, this book explains the path integral approach to quantum mechanics in a way that is understandable to every beginning quantum mechanic. Path integrals are integral (sorry, bad English) to the study of quantum field theory and string theory, and you must be a master at it if you would like to work in either of these fields. Purchase this book at once and start working!
... Read more

Product Description
This best-selling classic provides a graduate-level, non-historical, modern introduction of quantum mechanical concepts. The author, J. J. Sakurai, was a renowned theorist in particle theory. This revision by Jim Napolitano retains the original material and adds topics that extend the book's usefulness into the 21st century. The introduction of new material, and modification of existing material, appears in a way that better prepares readers for the next course in quantum field theory. Readerse will still find such classic developments as neutron interferometer experiments, Feynman path integrals, correlation measurements, and Bell’s inequality. The style and treatment of topics is now more consistent across chapters. The Second Edition has been updated for currency and consistency across all topics and has been checked for the right amount of mathematical rigor.  Fundamental Concepts, Quantum Dynamics,  Theory of Angular Momentum, Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics,  Approximation Methods, Scattering Theory, Identical Particles, Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, Appendices, Brief Summary of Elementary Solutions to Shr¨odinger’s Wave Eqation. Intended for those interested in gaining a basic knowledge of quantum mechanics ... Read more

Customer Reviews (41)

En excellent book in QM for an advanced course
I first learnt QM (or wave mechanics) from Griffith's text, and it made an excellent introduction. But I noticed when rereading Griffith's book to get an overview and to get a more abstract sense of how QM worked, it felt both slightly sloppy (a by-effect of the author's lovable informality, no doubt) and chaotic.

This is where Sakurai's text comes in. I've used the most recent edition of Modern Quantum Mechanics and I'm absolutely loving it. It starts off with a brief experiment, and shows how QM has to be invoked to describe the observations. From there, the book has postulates, axioms, and theorems all following neatly. But the text has also some very nice, thoroughly physical examples of how the theory is applied. The book also goes beyond the basics by for example introducing group theory for generators of rotation groups, and discusses the time-reversal operator (for T-symmetry).

Make no mistake, however: Sakurai assumes the reader knows some basics of wave mechanics, and lets you know it right away. This is not a book for a first course in QM (for which I warmly recommend Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics). But the mathematical rigor and crystal clear outline makes it an ideal text for a second or third course.

Truly Modern and destined to be a classic
This is simply the best graduate textbook for Quantum Mechanics available. It is NOT a first book in quantum mechanics just as Weinberg's book is not a first book on Field Theory. The approach to the subject is a superb synthesis of the approaches of Schwinger and Feynman and to great effect. The presentation is clear, concise and the intention, especially in the first few chapters is to draw the reader into mastering quantum mechanics through the gem of exercise sets, and NOT spoon feeding the reader like Griffiths or rambling on and on like Shankar.Unless one does the exercises, one would/should learn NOTHING by reading the chapters (this is meant especially for those who gave single star reviews).Its a delight especially for students who were aspiring theorists like this reviewer and were/are aware of the joys of understanding a subject through short, may be not so rigorous derivations and extensive problem-solving. This book (partly authored by San Fu Tuan) is NOT MEANT TO BE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA and at times needs to be supplemented by other older and broader texts like Cohen-Tanauji or even Shankar (I used the classics by Schiff, Landau-Lifshitz and Messiah) as mentioned in the bibliography. Would have given five star had it not have negligent expostions of WKB (the non-coupling constant perturbation approximation but equally important as in nonperturbative approximation methods prevalent today), omitting Magnetism/Quantum Hall effect, Hubbard Model.

Clear and engaging
Many introductory quantum courses start with the ways Quantum is similar to Classical Mechanics - often this starts with Poisson brackets and the position and momentum operators.This then transitions into a set of mathematical notations that seem unnecessarily complicated - Hamiltonians, eigenfunctions, etc in matrix notation and in a continuous/analytic function representation.Eventually, the course uses this framework to represent ideas that classical mechanics is unable to describe, but the student still has a nagging feeling of "Why is this necessary?"Sakurai's text introduces the idea of electron spin first, and how early experiments necessitated a new formalism for describing that behavior.This formalism is then later generalized to the continuous variables. The author's excitement for the topic shines through, and the discrete-first attitude of the book primes the student well for Second Quantization.

Avoid at all costs
I find it shocking that so many other reviewers feel that this is a good text. As a graduate student attempting to use this book to learn the fundamentals of QM, I felt that it was worthless.

If you are already familiar with QM, then this text might be a decent read and/or reference. From the student's point of view, however, don't even bother. The first chapter, supposedly one of the best, contains lists of mathematical definitions with no context to appreciate their importance. Explanations and examples are cryptic and severely lacking, if present at all. As one other reviewer noted, brilliant minds like Sakurai's can make easy work of complex ideas, and the way in which Sakurai writes is very annoying. If I found the material as "trivial" as he did, I would not be consulting his text.

This is one of the worst, if not THE worst, texts I have every tried to use. If you actually want this book, mine will be up for sale. If this text is required for a course, I would strongly encourage that you look into the wealth of other options. Throughout the semester I acquired a small library of QM books, the most recommended of which would be Griffiths. Its not all encompassing, but it was the text I most often referenced when I found Sakurai unhelpful.

Good reading material
It is a good materials for students interested in quantum mechanics, the math in it is a little tough though. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

An enjoyable slice
I liked this book and learned a good deal from it. It is intended as a look at only some aspects of QM -- a slice -- not the subject as a whole. It has some problems: he never defines quite why or how the given matrices are chosen for ecample.It seems like a good "add on" to whatever other introduction to QM you are reading.

Not a casual read.
A preview of this book has motivated me to take a Linear Algebra class at a local college. The author has tried hard to make the subject approachable by readers without a strong math background, however, I want to feel comfortable with the material and not be just hanging on lightly.

A great book for the beginner
I have quite a few books on Quantum Mechanics. This book does what the others do not. The first half is about simple math. Understanding that QP - PQ = ih/2pi is the matrix form of an equation and the QP - PQ is not zero because the matrices do not commute is critical. This is basic stuff that a lot of books just skip. The second half uses the math to explain some of the features of Quantum Mechanics. For me I needed the detailed first half even though the math was not too hard. Now I can read my other books with a new understanding and finally I am starting to understand Quantum Mechanics.

Quantum Disaster
I bought this book hoping it would simplify Quantum Mechanics; it starts out simple with some good stories; but I learned one thing from other quantum books at least philosophically, you can't get around the math, and even though Jordan even states that its not the books intended overall purpose to do classic quantum math in the summary at the start of the book, there should be some reference to it to keep in touch with other books. I like the style of the book with short staccato chapters but it gets shady around Chapter 10 about 1/2 way through the book, and he loses his focus, if you don't understand Chapter 10, then 11 and 12 will be the same and there should be more emphasis on the totality of probabilities equaling 1 and making sure the reader understands Chapter 10 dealing with mean values and real values. In order to do Quantum Physics, one must gradually learn vectors and tensors, calculus, matrix theory and probability and statistics, and to think outside the box abstractly; and you can't simplify that; if one wants a simple overview, then go and watch Leonard Susskind's video on YouTube!

Jordan half-strikes again
This is very good as far as it goes but large chunks of important quantum theory have been deliberately omitted thus devaluing the book's ultimate usefulness. It is not up to the standard I expected from the author's book on Linear Operators ... Read more

Product Description
If you need a book that relates the core principles of quantum mechanics to modern applications in engineering, physics, and nanotechnology, this is it. Students will appreciate the book's applied emphasis, which illustrates theoretical concepts with examples of nanostructured materials, optics, and semiconductor devices. The many worked examples and more than 160 homework problems help students to problem solve and to practice applications of theory. Without assuming a prior knowledge of high-level physics or classical mechanics, the text introduces Schrodinger's equation, operators, and approximation methods. Systems, including the hydrogen atom and crystalline materials, are analyzed in detail. More advanced subjects, such as density matrices, quantum optics, and quantum information, are also covered. Practical applications and algorithms for the computational analysis of simple structures make this an ideal introduction to quantum mechanics for students of engineering, physics, nanotechnology, and other disciplines. Additional resources available from www.cambridge.org/9780521897839. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Well-written, clear text
It's rare that I am happy about the textbook I assign for classes; many texts cover the wrong material, have significant holes, or are difficult for students to follow. I had used Miller's lecture notes a number of years ago as an undergrad, so I was excited when this book was published in time for the Applied QM class I started teaching last fall. The only downside I can see is that I often find it hard to improve upon the book's explanations; I sometimes feel as though I have very little to add.

good for self-learning!
My major is physics, and i bought this book for self-learning. The book is clear and requires less background knowledge, 2 years of basic college math and physics are enough. The book was well written with good explainations. Specialy with appendices can help you know what physics, math background you need for the subject.

Excellent intro book
As a physicist, I bought this book more for curiosity than to study itself. And I must confess I was really surprised by the conciseness of the text. It is a really nice and good introductory book. It doesn't go into the details and math formalism, but it does provide a nice physical insight, as well as good explanations. I recommend this book if you are looking for an introductory quantum mechanics text.

Excellent introductory quantum mechanics book for self-study that I have found
I am teaching myself quantum mechanics with the goal of understanding original research articles.I have found Miller to be extraordinarily well written and suitable for self-study. As an overall introduction to QM for self-study, I think Miller would be hard to beat, providing a nice balance between physical applications and mathematics. (For those sensitive to the physical quality of a book, Miller is very nicely produced and easy on aging eyes.)

Well-Written and Not Confusing, Extremely Complete
Many textbooks, in general, suffer in readability due to the author assuming the reader thinks just as he or she does, or knows a sufficient amount of information prior to reading. David Miller is one of those authors that is just the opposite: he never assumes you know anything that isn't in his book (other than that you know how to read and do basic math). In addition, Miller has the unique ability to relate complex and complicated concepts to common examples. You will find that reading through this text is much smoother than with other textbooks. There are also solutions to certain problems and viewgraphs available for free online.

The topics in the book cover the basic quantum mechanical scenarios, such as simple 1D/3D potentials, operators, the uncertainty principle (taught in two ways...Griffiths provides a third), matrix formalism, Dirac notation, angular momentum, spin, and the Hydrogen atom. In addition, more advanced topics, such as perturbation theory (time independent and dependent), the density matrix, and approximation techniques. Miller also relates much of the material to photonics topics, such as absorption, Fermi's Golden Rule, non-linear effects, refractive index, and much more. As an EE professor, he also covers some band theory of crystalline solids.

I feel that this book is extremely complete and will be extremely useful for anyone wanting to learn Quantum Mechanics. I've also used Griffiths and Singh, which are also excellent texts. I feel that Griffiths accompanies this text very well (so having both is more than complete). I have yet to find an error in the text, and this is most likely because Miller wrote this originally as a course reader that was published through Stanford. The course reader has been used by other professors and hundreds of student prior to publishing. This means that your learning won't be plagued or interrupted with errors, or with the need to purchase a new edition. ... Read more

Product Description

This book gives a modern, comprehensive introduction to the principles of quantum mechanics, to the main approximation methods and to the application of quantum theory to a wide variety of systems. The needs of students having an average mathematical ability are kept very much in mind, with the avoidance of complex mathematical arguments and any undue compression of material

Customer Reviews (10)

Quantum Mechanics (Paperback) by B. H. Bransden

Product received quickly and in good condition,
matching the description at a cheap Price. Good seller
to do business with

quantified quantum
As Irving Berlin wrote, Blue Skies is all I see" so goes Quantum Mechanics 2nd Edition. The theories "sing" in this thoughtfully written technical epic. As bathroom reading goes I wouldn't recommend this weighty volume since its such a long read. But anyone with a love for their neighborhood mechanic will treasure it. Thumbs up!

Not as I expected
I dont get this book as i exptected the seller said the book is "Good" but i got it in a bad condition.

Good book about QM with a sound mathematical foundation
This is a good book about quantum mechanics which starts out with the history of how quantum mechanics was derived. Afterwards it introduces wave mechanics and further on matrix mechanics. The math is introduced along the way, and is thoroughly explained.

My biggest problem with this book is that it never mentions Hilbert spaces which is an important part of the mathematical foundation of quantum mechanics.

Great QM Text
I have to agree with the other reviews. This is an excellent QM book for advanced undergrads or grad students. Beware, you'll need pencil and plenty of paper to read through the text and fill in the gaps between some calculations(like from equations a,b,c,d we can derive e). ... Read more

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Hands-on practice in solving quantum physics problems

Quantum Physics is the study of the behavior of matter and energy at the molecular, atomic, nuclear, and even smaller microscopic levels. Like the other titles in our For Dummies Workbook series, Quantum Physics Workbook For Dummies allows you to hone your skills at solving the difficult and often confusing equations you encounter in this subject.

• Explains equations in easy-to-understand terms
• Harmonic Oscillator Operations, Angular Momentum, Spin, Scattering Theory

Using a proven practice-and-review approach, Quantum Physics Workbook For Dummies is all you need to get up to speed in problem solving! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fairly Decent
This book is fairly decent, at least what I have thus far been able to work through.Depending on what book you're using to start your undergraduate studies in quantum physics, this book may be of help at first or it may not.It jumps right into bra-ket notation, matrices, operators.Some books like Griffiths' Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, don't really touch much of that until around chapter 3 (well operators are hit in chapter 2).The problems are also a bit cookie cutter, in that they are pretty much the typical basic problems you'd find in any other book, then again, one wouldn't expect much more from a for Dummies book.The solutions are a bit terse at times, but overall they aren't too bad.The chapter breakdown is as follows,
1. The Basics of Quantum Physics: Introducing State Vectors
2. No Handcuffs Involved: Bound States in Energy Wells
3. Over and Over with Harmonic Oscillators
4. Handling Angular Momentum in Quantum Physics
5. Spin Makes the Particle Go Round
6. Solving Problems in Three Dimensions: Cartesian Coordinates
7. Going Circular in Three Dimensions: Spherical Coordinates
8. Getting to Know Hydrogen Atoms
9. Corralling Many Particles Together
10. Pushing with Perturbation Theory
11. One Hits the Other Scattering Theory
12. Ten Tips to Make Solving Quantum Physics Problems Easier
13. Ten Famous SOlved Quantum Physics Problems
14. Ten Ways to Avoid Common Errors When Solving Problems
Overall, the book is meant to compliment the book Quantum Physics for Dummies, also by the same author.So if you liked that book, you'll also probably like this book.Like most of the for Dummies series, there are much better books on the market, but at the same time, they usually aren't half bad either. ... Read more

Product Description
Simple enough for students yet sufficiently comprehensive to serve as a reference for working physicists, this classic text is celebrated for its clarity and coherence of presentation as well as the author’s fluid and literate style. Subjects include a detailed treatment of formalism and its interpretation, an analysis of simple systems, symmetries and invariance, methods of approximation, and a review of the elements of relativistic quantum mechanics. "Strongly recommended"—American Journal of Physics.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A superb eposition
Messiah is one of the first QM books I bought, (french edition) almost 40 years ago. I found it pretty difficult at the time, yet after many years and many books, it's hard to find another presentation definitely superior. It's not for beginners, but you can count on it, any time you look back for somehing you find a very clear and complete exposition. You're groping for an angular momentum formula? It's there, no need to go for an angular momentum book. Yet it is not a bible, it's stylish, lucid, general. It's long, not verbose, because it explains carefully, with details, and mathematically rigorous (without going into functional analysis). True, it lacks some newer topics, but with a firm grasp of the fundamentals, it's easy to get them from separate sources. The Dover edition is a real gem.

Great Value!
This is one of the best quantum books I have used (I am using 4 for my current class and have used 3 other books in past classes).This book is very clear and is the best value for the cost of the book.Much better than other books that were 15 times the price.It is very thorough and has good explanations.Highly recommended.

The best Quantum Mechanics book that has ever been written. For serious people only
The best Quantum Mechanics book that has ever been written. For serious people only. I, as a university physics lecturer of 22 years of experience,very very strongly recommend this book to every serious student. But, these two volume books must be studied with an endless patience. My way of studying it is: two pages a day. Therefore, you can complete them in two years time. By the way, if someone owns a solutions manual these two volume QM books, please notify me at nyildiz@cumhuriyet.edu.tr.

Great Buy-review by author of Quantum Mechanics Demystified
With the high price of textbooks these days this little gem is a fantastic buy. The book is thick-think of getting both volumes of Cohen-Tannoudji wrapped into one. It begins with the standard review of "old" quantum theory, carefully explaining the photoelectric effect and all that. The presentation is nice, detailed, and physically insightful. It also includes things like the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rules that might get left behind in modern treatments. After this he has an excellent chapter on "matter waves and the Schrodinger equation", with an excellent discussion of wave packets and quanitzation of atomic energy levels. I found this chapter alone made purchasing the book worthwhile. The rest of the book goes into the formal development of quantum theory and studies central potentials, scattering, the harmonic oscillator, angular momentum and all that. At $19 bucks you can't go wrong buying this book.

messiah the messiah
This book seems an effort for including in two volumes a wide vision of quantum relativistic and non relativistic theory. The result is erratic. In the first chapters, messiah accumulate an enormous quantity of material: The old ondulatory mechanics is remixed with some formal modern approach, poorly logical matched, provoke a great confusion. The chapter dedicated to central potentials and scattering contains a lot of formulas not deduced in the text, and the reader is compelled to the appendixes that are very disordered. There is no logical ordering in this part of the book too. The chapter dedicated to angular momentum is in some extent influenced by the nuclear physics orientation of the whole book, and offers some very difficult problems next to easy ones. Symmetries are very formally treated, and the author offers some mathematic instruments poorly explained. The effort along the book to maintain a rigurous dirac notation make it entagled, and the case of the perturbation theory is really hard to understand for this reason. The best chaters of the book are those contained inthe last part(relativistic quantum mechanics), and the introduction to the quantized field theory, thus the whole valoration of the book can not be very good. ... Read more

Product Description
"Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" covers quantum mechanics from a time-dependent perspective in a unified way from beginning to end. Intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses this text will change the way people think about and teach quantum mechanics in chemistry and physics departments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

I love this book!
All I have for Tannor's book is praise. Unlike its many siblings, Quantum Mechanics by Tannor is a completely original text from which one can learn the subject from a time-dependent perspective. Its content is extremely suitable for the chemical physics community, but any physicist or engineer who wants to reinforce her intuition on the subject must purchase it. From a personal experience, I can say that after taken the standard physics quantum mechanics courses (Merzbacher, Sakurai, etc.), Tannor is a pleasure to read. It's clarity is unbeatable, and I love the historical context and modern techniques it introduces, in particular, numerical techniques. Every time I read the book I discover a little piece of wisdom that I hadn't known before. This allows me to incorporate new ideas to my research. In summary, Tannor's books is nothing but orgasmic, and if you're also a chemistry/physics theory nerd, you'll also love it!

A novel, clear and modern exposition of quantum mechanics for advanced undergraduate and graduate studies
This new book is a beautiful exposition of quantum mechanics from a somewhat unfamiliar orientation - the time dependent perspective. The use of wave-packets and their time evolution fits in very naturally (but not completely!) with classical intuition. This makes the quantum aspects of the system much more explicit and clear. Also, it is a more modern perspective for studying time-varying Hamiltonian (and even non-Hamiltonian) systems.

However, the standard eigenvalue perspective is not fully abandoned. It is taught in parallel to the time dynamics, augmenting and enhancing understanding of various examples throughout.

The book also contains some unique and highly accessible and intuitive overviews, hard to find anywhere else at this level. Specifically, Wigner and correlation functions are introduced in a very compelling manner. Also, scattering is taught both in the standard beaten track of scattering eigenstates, but also with the more modern and computationally useful Moller operator formalism. The numerical methods chapter is a gem, suitable for a modern course on quantum mechanics, which naturally includes computer simulations of quantum dynamics.

The book fills in a long overlooked void connecting advanced undergraduates with graduate studies. More specialized topics such as solid-state physics, field theory and many-particle systems are hinted at, but correctly left open for more specialized and advanced texts.

The Applications are geared towards chemical physics, working mainly on molecular-photon interactions with ultra-short pulses. These sections nicely summarize a very broad field, and bring the reader up-to-date with some exciting and modern results. This is especially enjoyable when compared to standard textbooks on quantum mechanics, which usually bring the student up-to-date with the early fifties of the previous century...

The book contains a very nice assortment of exercises, which if gone through carefully, give confidence and a sense of understanding. Also, the extensive reference list is an added special feature.

I studied with this book, and have been using the methods in it ever since, to good effect. I recommend it without reservation.

Quantum Dynamics explained in an accessible, well written, readable book
The first part of Tannor's book presents a clear and easily accessible first pass at the basics of quantum dynamics. It takes the generic "wave packet" chapter, common to many traditional quantum physics texts, and expands it into a highly effective tool for building quantum intuition about nuclear dynamics in molecules, motivating fundamental theorems and important mathematical concepts and techniques. Part two develops the theory behind various approximate methods for treating quantum dynamics, and part three gives some excellent applications providing, for example, a well developed and approachable theoretical framework of modern pulsed laser nonlinear spectroscopy methods, and an especially nice chapter on control of chemical reactions by femtosecond pulse sequences, just to mention a couple of examples from the broad scope of applications given. The text is ideal for students of Chemistry, Physics, and engineering, accessible and challenging to both experimental and theory students alike. It is clearly written, with lots of interesting exercises. At Boston University we offer three semesters of graduate quantum mechanics: First, a semester of traditional quantum chemistry, the basics and an introduction to ab initio electronic structure methods. Next a semester introducing quantum dynamics based on Tannor's book, and finally a semester which applies these ideas to molecular spectroscopies, focusing on femtosecond nonlinear methods. Tannor's book serves as the intellectual bridge between these courses, and does so admirably. Over recent years I have taught our Quantum II class with three different drafts of the text and watched it evolve and expand into the concise, well written text that has now been published. It is a pleasure to teach from and a wonderfully clear book to read. The students in these recent classes have been very vocal with their praise for Tannor's book.

A second course in quantum mechanics
The idea behind David Tannor's book is simple - instead of going the traditional route, in which one solves the eigenvalue problem of some hamiltonian and call it a day, Tannor chooses to examine the time evolution of simple quantum systems. He deals with scattering of wavepackets, bound particles (e.g. particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, etc ... ) and illustrates the features of quantum theory through such examples. It makes you wonder why no other book does the same - after all, the really interesting part of QM is quantum dynamics, isn't it? For example: the fact that the eigenfunction of an infinite well is a sine function is all very nice, but how do particles actually behave in such a well? And so forth.
I recommend this book for anyone who has already had a first course in QM the "traditional way" and now wants to learn how exactly quantum systems behave in a time dependent way. ... Read more

Product Description

The more science tells us about the world, the stranger it looks. Ever since physics first penetrated the atom, early in this century, what it found there has stood as a radical and unanswered challenge to many of our most cherished conceptions of nature. It has literally been called into question since then whether or not there are always objective matters of fact about the whereabouts of subatomic particles, or about the locations of tables and chairs, or even about the very contents of our thoughts. A new kind of uncertainty has become a principle of science.

This book is an original and provocative investigation of that challenge, as well as a novel attempt at writing about science in a style that is simultaneously elementary and deep. It is a lucid and self-contained introduction to the foundations of quantum mechanics, accessible to anyone with a high school mathematics education, and at the same time a rigorous discussion of the most important recent advances in our understanding of that subject, some of which are due to the author himself.

Customer Reviews (22)

Simply fantastic
If you want a book that explains quantum mathematics without condescending to the reader and are not afraid of a little math, this is the book for you.Virtually all books on QM unfortunately go to one extreme or the other -- either avoiding any mathematical formulas altogether, so that you can't possibly understand the theory and simply have to take what the author says on faith, or overdoing the math and becoming far too technical.Albert, a philosopher, is brilliant at selecting just the minimal amount of math that you need to know to understand what's going on; he simplifies where possible but does not oversimplify.He also explains things very clearly in words. Some may be put off by the colloquialisms of his language (he loves to say things like "cook up" and "cool," and perhaps he overuses italics for emphasis.But these are extremely minor flaws.It is simply mystifying why there are so many negative reviews of this excellent work.To be sure, it is not an easy read and demands quite a bit of the reader.But if you want to have a grasp of the real nature of QM, you have to make the effort, and Albert is as good a guide as you will find.

This is an elegant piece of work.
This really is a wonderful book, directed at the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Albert's elucidation of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics is not only the essence of simplicity, but also accurate.A most unusual combination!

Albert then examines the consequences of that formalism for non-locality, the EPR experiment, Bell's inequality, the problem of measurement and the collapse of the wave function in a laid-back but precise presentation.Some other reviews have criticized the prose, but I found the writing to be friendly, modest and (and here's the punchline) understandable.

This is an elegant piece of work.

Cult film? Spare me.
What the Bleep is NOT "cult" film, and I wonder if the person who used that term even knows what it means or watched the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know".

Succinctly, "What the Bleep" is the greatest film ever made. The fact that Albert disagrees with the filmakers detracts from, and does not add to, his credibility.

Anything that finally attempts to unravel the fabric of deceit and brainwashing that western organized religion has propogated onto the populace is a refreshing addition to our culture and should be required viewing for the entire race.

Also, to the reviewer who mocked JZ Knight and Ramtha: JZ and Ramtha are the real thing. The channeling has been put through an endless battery of scientific tests in an attempt to debunk the phenomenon and the results proved just the opposite:what JZ is doing is real and cannot be explained away as hoax.While channelling, Ramtha/JZ's brainwaves are in DELTA WHILE SHE IS CONSCIOUS - which is scientifically impossible for a human being to do. No other human being has ever accomplished this, and the scientists were forced to conclude that Ramtha "is a non-local phenomenon".

Anyone who viewed "What the Bleep" with skepticism or disdain is obviously one of the many who have been brainwashed by western religion to the point of being so closed minded that they cannot even recognize enlightenment and true knowledge when they see it. It is not "occult" - it is TRUTH backed by science and quantum mechanics. Period.

Jonathan Meadows

Horrible Writing
This book is so horrifically flawed on so many levels.First, there is the erroneous uncritical thinking involved in dealing with the measurement problem, which despite David's attempt to address, is completely evaded via a multi-layered philosophical detours of an almost paramastabatory nature.Second, on a technical writing level, David is completely unable to formulate one complete, coherent, and logically cohesive sentence.His writing style is to riddled with repeated mistakes in basic grammar that it is genuinely embarrassing to read.

I would greatly encourage those interested in real science to read The Fabric of the Cosmos or The Elegant Universe.

-B. Greene

Professor David Albert does not promote the occult
A previous reviewer expressed her dismay that Professor Albert has appeared in a "cult promotional video" called "What the Bleep Do We Know". I recommend that those concerned or interested by this claim do a search in the Wikipedia for the title of the film, and then search within that page for the phrase "David Albert". Within the paragraph containing his name is a link to an article in the on-line edition of Popular Science Magazine which explains that Prof. Albert does *NOT* and did *NOT* support the views of the filmmakers:the statements he made in his interview for the film were edited and cut such that he appears to support their ideas, when he actually considers them to be nonsense.

I have read this wonderful book by Prof. Albert. I give it four stars instead of five because of the writing style:while said style is occasionally refreshing, it can sometimes be a hindrance to the reader's understanding of the ideas presented by the good professor.

Prof. Albert uses a combination of intuitive and interesting thought experiments, coupled with a conceptual abstraction from the QM math, to engage the reader in a profound exploration of the *consequences* of the quantum reality that seems to encompass the microscopic world (and indeed the universe as a whole). ... Read more

Product Description
Advanced graduate-level text looks at symmetry, rotations and angular momentum addition; introduces basic formalism of time-dependent quantum mechanics and occupation number representations; focuses on scattering theory; uses its concepts to develop basic theories of chemical reaction rates, and more. Problems and bibliography appear at end of each chapter, along with an answer section new to this edition.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Didactically excellent

This book is an excellent choice
for undergraduate and graduate students
of Chemistryinterested in understanding the principles of Quantum Mechanics applied to Chemistry.
It is didactally excellent, clear in explanations. Besides exhibiting many worked propblems, it proposes many questions and new problems to be solved.
Congratulations to the authors.
Antônio Brant

Cover the Physical Chemistry World
This book is not so easy for beginners. But if you are somewhat familiar to introductory quantum physics (or quantum chemistry) and mathematics (maybe introductory linear algebra and differential equations), this will be helpful for you to understand the applications of quantum mechanics to chemistry.
This book offers many of topics to you, especially related to spectroscopy and kinetics. Not only that, but also it tells you about the theories (Fermi's golden rule, group theory, etc.) to understand those things. If you are interested in the details and foundations about Hartree-Fock equations, I'd like to recommend "Modern Quantum Chemistry: Introduction to Advanced Electronic Structure Theory". (And other books concerned about computational chemistry)
The only problem is that the formulas are not derived in detail. Of course there are so many equations, I think, but much more formulas are needed to explain all the things clearly. However, you can fill up the gaps between the expressions, if you are the one satisfies the condition what I mentioned in the first paragraph.

The best book even if it wasn't such a good deal
I bought this book to review for PhD candidacy exams and look back on it once every six months for reference.This book explains in a very clear way the most fundamental concepts in theoretical chemistry, particularly dynamics.It touches very little on quantum chemistry, ie electronic structure theory, as there are many other books on that topic available already.The coverage of Fermi's golden rule and response theory is very accessible.

Even at $50, this would be the best money one could spend on a graduate level textbook on quantum dynamics.I can't imagine someone in the field not finding this book useful at almost any stage of their career.

Great for those with some background
A great book for chemistry students (advanced undergraduate or graduate) who have a thorough understanding of the basics of quantum mechanics. The book begins with a quick review and quickly goes into methods and theory that are of interest to chemists i.e, many electron and molecular techniques. They also provide a nice collection of problems...with solutions! It is a very clearly written and well thought out book...highly recommended. For those who need a more elementary approach, check out "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics in Chemistry" by the same authors. ... Read more

Product Description
Careful and detailed explanations of challenging concepts, and comprehensive and up-to-date coverage in this best-selling quantum mechanics book, continue to set the standard in physics education.In this new edition, a new chapter on the revolutionary topic of of quantum computing (not currently covered in any other book at this level) and thorough updates to the rest of the book bring it up to date.For anyone interested physics or quantum mechanics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Extremely good for most people studying quantum
Unless you're looking to go straight to field theory or some other "pure" form of quantum, this is probably one of the best books you can pick up, particularly for people who are actually going to use quantum mechanics to calculate real things (solids, atoms, molecules, etc.).This is not to say that it's in any way an applied book, it is certainly appropriate for an undergrad physics class.Doesn't baby you like Griffiths but still spells things out for you without being coy or requiring you to make many intuitive leaps on your own the way Sakurai etc. do.I find that physical chemist friends of mine particularly appreciate this book, as well as several engineers I know.

Best used as a QM reference text
This is definitely the most comprehensive QM textbook out there.That said, I disagree with the majority of the reviews that claim this is a good text to learn QM from in an independent study environment.If you want to learn QM on your own, I recommend Griffiths.The layout of that text is more logical and the reader isn't constantly told to refer to equations in chapter 3 when he/she is on chapter 7.

For any graduate level engineer or physicist, this text is a must have.I constantly refer to this book when I'm stuck on a problem, or when I need to refresh my memory in general.If you're an undergraduate or high schooler who wants to learn QM in their spare time, I'd get Griffiths and Shankar, the standard QM texts for undergraduate courses in the subject.

Do yourself a favor and get Griffiths
Griffiths is clearly a better choice than this book; while it covers the material in an introductory undergraduate course, it definitely does not have good organization. Typographical errors are abound, and there are essentially very little helpful examples presented. I had to refer to multiple sources to learn QM, and as this was my first true book I read on quantum mechanics for self study, it definitely did a terrible job of a presentation.

The reason I think this book gets two stars instead of one is that it gives a pretty good (decent) explanation of the fundamentals; even then, deciphering what he's trying to say can be difficult at times.

Quantum book cover gauged
I was dissapointed to find large deep scratches on the front cover of my "new" book.Other than that it was fine.

the qm encyclopedia
It's a bit old school but very complete. No book is as thick or helpful.
Add this to your bookshelf. ... Read more

Product Description
Quantum Physics For Dummies helps make quantum physics understandable and accessible. From what quantum physics can do for the world to understanding hydrogen atoms, readers will get complete coverage of the subject, along with numerous examples to help them tackle the tough equations. Compatible with classroom text books and courses, Quantum Physics For Dummies lets students study at their own paces and helps them prepare for graduate or professional exams. Coverage includes:

• The Schrodinger Equation and its Applications
• The Foundations of Quantum Physics
• Vector Notation
• Spin
• Scattering Theory, Angular Momentum, and more

Customer Reviews (22)

Unacceptable errors by any measure
NOTE: In this review, due to HTML, I will use [] brackets instead of the regular bra-ket notation brackets.

If this book was about poetry or even programming, occasional typo or error would be acceptable. Because in the case of the former, one could probably know what the author meant. In the case of the latter, programming, one could probably try and correct the error in the program code by deferring to compiler.

However, in a book that uses mathematics, even the smallest omission or error can leave one in a very confused state.

I am only on page 40 and will return the book to the store. There are numerous errors, typos and omissions of explanations in the book.
Furthermore there is no errata on the dummies website that I can see.

Some examples of the lack of explanation already on page 30: where the author connects the bra and the ket into [psi|psi], not explaining where the double || bar went. Also, on the next page 31, the author introduces a new variable "phi", without explaining that the choice of the variable name is irrelevant and it is just a convention. Initially I attached special meaning to variables "psi" and "phi".

The explanation of what a "linear" operator is, is just horrible on page 36, where the author manipulates the "phi", "psi" and "chi" symbols with no apparent logic, only to conclude in the end:

"Thus, |phi][psi| is indeed a linear operator".


Regarding errors, on page 35, the matrix R is really messed up, with 200 instead of 2 etc...
On page 37, 4th rule states :

"4. Write your final equation
[psi|A^+|phi] = [phi|A|psi "

Now, where did the right ] bracket go? There is no explanation whatsoever that the heck just happened in step 4.


In any case, I find chapter 2 extremely confusing. Chapter 1 was ok.

I can't see how people could rate this book 5 stars, except maybe that they were paid by someone or given a free copy for review - and reviewed it with a high score in order to receive More free books.

PS: I am a dummy but I did take 3rd year calculus and 3rd year linear algebra in university.

Not a dummies book. Written for a different audience.
There is clearly an audience for this book as evidenced by the many thoughtful reviews. The authors and editors of this series are congratulated on their ever expandingseries of books on math and physics. You will need a basic understading of linear equations and differential equations to enjoy this book. It would have been helpful for the workbook to include more examples worked out of Eigenvectors, unitary matrices, andHermetian matrices . Many of the operator functions would make much more sense if the multiplication were actually worked out. In addition the proofs of the Heisenberg and Schrodinger equations are missing steps. I would encourage Dr Holzner and the editors of the series to consider a second edition of both this book and the workbook.Chapter 2 of the textbook and the corresponding excercises in the workbook should be markedly expanded to more fully cover all math mentioned above. It would not be difficult to make this a 5 star book.The beauty of this math and physics should be able to be appeciated by many more people. Teaching the math is the hard part. As evidenced by his differential equations workbook Dr. Holzner should be able to rewrite the present texts to be better understood by a wider audience.

Rated U- For Useless
I bought this book hoping to learn a little about this crazy phenomenon called quantum mechanics. Instead, I got a book or derivations, little insight, and more Greek letters than the Rosetta Stone. Hard to read, little explanatory value, not enough illustrations, and quite a few typos. I can't even figure out who this is marketed to. Clearly, it's not for people that don't have experience with Calculus/Differential equations/ Probability Theory / Linear Algebra/ and knowledge of wave mechanics. They completely skip any intro on any current theories or any explanation of basic particles.
I can't even see the value of having this if you already know something about the subject, since who wants to walk through a bunch of algebraic derivations of some equation that you already know, since you are not a Dummy.
This book is the problem with the whole field. Everybody hides behind some math curtain, citing how important the Schrödinger equation is, pretending that all this math means something, when they actually know very little about the subject in general.

DO NOT BUY!

A sales con job
A contradiction!! Anything but a general overview for novice readers I want my money back

Not for dummies
This book is not for dummies.It is full of equations from the beginning.The preface indicates it is written at a college course level and assumes you are knowledgeable about calculus. I wanted to have the concept of Quantum Physics explained in layman's terms.Therefore, the description of the book on Amazon should state clearly the level of knowledge required for this book.It really does not belong in the Dummies series. ... Read more

Product Description
This advanced undergraduate-level text provides a formulation of the quantum theory in terms of qualitative and imaginative concepts outside classical theory. A broad range of specific applications follows, worked out in considerable mathematical detail. Also included: an examination of the relationship between quantum and classical concepts. Preface. Index.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Masterpiece
This is the best book written by Bohm in my opinion. It covers all topics of non relativistic quantum mechanics (fundamentals, hydrogen atom, quantum harmonic oscillator, angular momentum and spin, perturbation theory) without using the bracket notation, in a beautiful and understandable way . Bohm also coversthe philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics, something that is missing in books nowadays. It's physics at it's very best, a must have!

Why did no one ever tell me about this book?
I have to agree completely with Gregory Bravo's review. I feel sorry for all the poor physics students struggling through their undergraduate quantum mechanics courses without the help of David Bohm. I bought every quantum mechanics book that I could get my hands on, because I had heard so many horror stories about the difficulty of the subject. It seems that this is the only book I needed to buy. As it turns out, quantum mechanics is not so difficult, afterall.

Equip yourself with this book, Schaum's Outline on Quantum Mechanics (keeping a keen eye out for errors, mind you), and whatever pathetic excuse for a text you are given, and you should be fine, assuming you have a half-way decent professor. Don't let the fact that this is a dated book lacking Dirac notation deter you. You learn all that notation in QM courses, anyways, so a clear exposition of concepts should be what you want, and no one does it better than David Bohm.

Cheap, fair book which you can't treat too seriously
This is a fair textbook of quantum mechanics, and it is very cheap. Well, I mean cheap as well as cheap. It does not contain too much mathematics. However, the words are usually good substitutes. The book covers the usual basic material of quantum mechanics based on the wavefunctions; the particle in the most usual potentials; perturbation theory; the concept of spin, and so forth.

However, I don't think that David Bohm was really among those who understood the meaning of quantum mechanics too well - and based on the other reviews, I think that the readers who claim that they finally understood quantum mechanics from this book have not really gotten the point either. Well, don't get me wrong: the book was written in 1950 and at that time, Bohm more or less believed the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics even though he had many more doubts about the important principles of QM than what would have been appropriate.

Nevertheless, David Bohm spends relatively too much time with his (rather unsuccessful) speculations about the "deeper", deterministic structure underlying quantum mechanics. David Bohm's second most well-known contribution to physics (after the Aharonov-Bohm effect) is his new version of the pilot wave theory, initiated by de Broglie in the late 1920s and used to change the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

His new interpretation is based on the idea that the wavefunction is a real wave, and moreover there also exists a classical particle with a well-defined position. These two objects classically interact in such a way that the probabilistic results of quantum mechanics can be reproduced in several simplest contexts.

However, this is not a correct idea for more convoluted systems; experimentally speaking, it contradicts special relativity (as required in relativistic quantum field theory), the existence of spin, and so forth. More generally, even without these advanced concepts in quantum mechanics, Bohm's idea goes against the spirit of quantum mechanics with its Hilbert spaces and different bases and operators on the same Hilbert space that are "equally important".

Bohm's prejudices about determinism and the special role of the position operator may have followed from his unfortunate, conventional technical approach to quantum mechanics that always starts with wavefunctions in the position representation - an approach chosen also in this book. This representation leads many readers to the wrong conclusion that the wavefunction is something like a real classical wave in space - much like the electromagnetic wave - and that the position has a special role among the observables. I say "observable" because Bohm tries to humiliate the concept of an operator.

I agree with others who say that we are not spending enough time by teaching the interpretational issues of quantum mechanics. Bohm's book does so. However I disagree that Bohm's approach is a good one. Instead, I would recommend Feynman's lectures on physics. Feynman's pedagogical treatment of quantum mechanics starts with two-dimensional Hilbert spaces. They are very useful because the reader understands that different bases (and operators) in the same Hilbert space may be equally important, and that the probabilistic interpretation of the amplitudes is absolutely essential.

The magician Uri Geller has convinced David Bohm that he (Geller) had supernatural abilities - a point that Feynman liked to ridicule. I am afraid that this transformation of Bohm at the end of his life might be related to his exaggerated emphasis on philosophical prejudices in quantum mechanics, as opposed to the pragmatic goal to extract useful predictions.

Quantum mechanics is weird. Sidney Coleman said that if thousands of philosophers had been trying, for thousands of years, to find the weirdest thing possible, they would have had never found a thing as weird as quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, quantum mechanics works, and we know that we can extract the information about probabilities of anything. (And the new insights about decoherence also explain where the difference between macroscopic and microscopic objects comes from.) In this sense I feel that the approach to quantum mechanics "Shut up and calculate" is a better one than wasting time with a wrong philosophy.

Despite the criticism, the book is cheap enough so that I can recommend you to buy it. David Bohm was an interesting person even though he was a communist.

I (think) I finally understand...
The age of the book is what gives it a huge advantage to today's typical QT and QM textbook. Instead of presenting the concepts in the "status quo" of physics (usually just a ridiculously brief intro to why QT started, and then presenting Operators as things almost perfectly synonymous to classical concepts and continuing from there), this book really goes through the history of where all the math came from. Bohm is very careful about teaching you what parts of the math are just convenience tricks (like Operators) versus real necessities to QM. And also what parts are just based on just experiments. Unlike today, in the 1950's, QT and QM were still suspect theories, so students were taught of the known and possible holes (no pun intended :) in the theory. Bohm points these out throughout the whole book.

Disappointed
I bought the book because of the good reviews below and the low price. I was a little disappointed with Bohm's explanations and wordings of concepts that I already know. I think that it'd be difficult for someone to learn anything from this book unless (s)he is already familiar with quantum mechanics. Anyhow, the book is still a good buy considering it is at least 5 times cheaper than textbooks on quantum mech. ... Read more

Product Description
Although there are many textbooks that deal with the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics (QM) and its application to standard problems, none take into account the developments in the foundations of the subject which have taken place in the last few decades. There are specialized treatises on various aspects of the foundations of QM, but none that integrate those topics with the standard material. This book aims to remove that unfortunate dichotomy, which has divorced the practical aspects of the subject from the interpretation and broader implications of the theory.

The book is intended primarily as a graduate level textbook, but it will also be of interest to physicists and philosophers who study the foundations of QM. Parts of it could be used by senior undergraduates too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

One of the best textbooks on QM
This book is the most clear and thorough quantum mechanics course I've ever seen.Unlike most physics book it uses formal developments of the theory from the first changes of the book, but the author uses the most advanced modern mathematical techniques available, so the whole explanation stays clear and simple to understand even you've never touched the subject before.Nonetheless, this is not just an introductory book, it covers both the fundamentals and the advanced topics, as well as the modern researches like Bell's inequality.The author also frequently points out the common errors beginners tend to absorb and pays a lot of attention to some misconceptions present in other books.

Very Good book - that gives diffrent ides to Quantum Mechanics
Very Good book - that gives diffrent Sides to Quantum Mechanics. Please advise for continue books for that book.

excellent QM text
I'm writing to lend support to the above positive reviews.I found Ballentine's approach clear and straightforward, but I had already taken an undergraduate QM course before reading this text.Thorough attention is devoted to foundational details.The discussions of measurement and interpretation cleared up some confusing misconceptions I acquired from Griffith's text.

The text seems to lack in the simple, idealized examples common in introductory texts.I think this is an advantage for an advanced text but may make it more difficult as an introductory text.

This book will be a classic
This it's the best book on QM Who I read ever, I'm A Bch student of physics, and I readed many book on this subject, but always the authors just put some results from some stupid arguments like "It's Natural". In this case the author just give mathematical and very deep physical arguments in every step of the development of the QM theory.
It's the Clearest book on the subject and it's not hard to read, I strongly recomend read the hole book, after this you adquire a very deep knowlowedge of the theory, of the nature, and lot of tools to solve any QM problem. Congratulations Dr Ballentine you really do an excelent Job

wonderful treatment
This is a great book. Mathematically accurate and very precise. No bologne. I loved it. The only bummer is that it doesn't treat some experimentally useful topics (decay of states, e.g.) but it's a great book to learn from. ... Read more

Product Description
What does quantum mechanics tell us about the key model physical systems of nature? The author of this highly regarded text explores this question in a conceptual manner, fusing mathematical and philosophical elements to present physical imagery that closely parallels the mathematics. Beginning with an overview that discusses the premise and design for the study, the text proceeds with an examination of the classical quantum bead on a track: its state and representations; its measurement spectra as operator eigenvalues; the harmonic oscillator: bound bead in a symmetric force field; and the bead in a spherical shell. Other topics include spin, matrices, and the structure of quantum mechanics; the simplest atom; indistinguishable particles; and stationary-state perturbation theory. This refreshing and instructive text is geared toward upper-level undergraduate students in physics. 1992 ed. 64 figures. Index.
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Customer Reviews (11)

OK in many respects, but strident New Age POV gets in the way
No doubt you can learn a lot of basic QM from this book, and its answers and hints to problems are good for self-study. But the author (MC) is overly insistent on his particular philosophical interpretation of the subject. Ubiquitous bold-face headers in capitals give the book the feeling of an indoctrination manual for a New Age cult: e.g., "WHAT YOU MEASURE IS WHAT YOU KNOW" (@13), "THERE'S ALWAYS A LANGUAGE OF CERTAINTY" (@195) and "THE WHOLE UNIVERSE PARTAKES IN EVERY EVENT" (@240). (I share another reviewer's irritation at the use of "language" for "basis", BTW.) It recalls the 1970s and early '80s, when John Archibald Wheeler was pushing his observers-create-the-universe POV and Wu-Li Masters were Dancing. The main text has more than its share of moralizing, or at least odd, judgments, such as that uncertainty is caused by "[p]igheaded insistence on measuring other observables" (@195) -- so the same wouldn't be true of inadvertent, or simply unenthusiastic, measurement of another observable?

MC adopts the Schrödinger picture ("A STATE EVOLVES IN TIME", @ 177) without alerting the reader, presumably a QM novice, that he's doing so; a corollary is that he also fails to mention the Heisenberg picture (all time dependence in dynamical variables, none in the states). Moreover, a cornerstone of MC's view is interpreting the wave function as describing an individual particle. Unfortunately, this is neither the only interpretation of QM (though you won't learn that from this book), nor the best one. If you're willing to dive into its Dirac-ish, math-intensive approach, Leslie Ballentine's terrific text gives you a much more through and balanced analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of QM, including a careful and convincing argument for a statistical interpretation of the uncertainty relations (an aspect of QM that Einstein got right). As Ballentine's book also shows, if you're going to be opinionated it's more helpful to the reader if you at least describe other views before you trash them. Ironically for a book with a strong experimentalist orientation, this "Primer"'s math might be more reliable than its physics. If you read it, work the problems and be skeptical about most of the rest.

More boring content...
Jeez, can't authors today concentrate more on practicality and real world uses and examples instead of just giving us one long book on math?

MJL

Really UNDERSTAND Dirac bra and ket
This superb book will help you actually understand the Dirac notation and vector formalism.

You need a good practical knowledge of Fourier analysis and some comfort with complex numbers.

A truly superb introduction to the non-schrodinger formalism.

Good intro to quantum
This book takes you step by step into quantum mechanics concepts.You might need to buy another book to flesh out the details but this one really helps to get the basic concepts across.

A guide for the principle tenets
"Primer of Quantum Mechanics" by Marvin Chester allows the reader to
organize his thinking and basic knowledge of Quantum Mechanics. It does
assume a fair amount of mathematics: matrices, calculus and vectors. It
also focuses on the content and foundations of the science and so will be
useful to those just wanting an overview. It tends to be somewhat dated but as a basic guide it does not suffer. ... Read more