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Books on Quantum Mechanics?

Posted by Cliff on from the curiosity-MAY-have-killed-shrödinger's-cat dept.

manjunaths asks: "I would like to ask the physicists here to recommend some books on Quantum Mechanics. For those of us who have a decent background in calculus and have done some advanced physics (field theory, network theory etc.,). The books must have math as well as theoretical explanation. If it has examples which explain/relate to real world physics that would be really nice."

2 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like Feynman's texbooks by Muhammar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Try Feynman Lectures, Feynman "Six Easy Pieces" and "Six Not-So-Easy Pieces". Most of the physics has not aged from the time the books was written, - QED, relativistic gravitation and the Standard model were almost complete by then. And he had unusual gift for readability and ingenuous practical examples. [I think he won some teaching awards for his books, also.]

    That is what I heard - but try to ask some physicist next time :)

    Here is a nifty interview with Feynman (1979):
    http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interview s/feynman .html

    --
    I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  2. A couple of classics by balamw · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm a Physics Ph.D. and I found the following most useful in grad school while studying for the quals.
    • Cohen-Tannoudji: very comprehensive, but perhaps overwhelming due to its heft/cost. Heavy into Dirac (bra-ket) notation.
    • Landau: requires the most calculus, lots left as "an exercise to the reader"
    • Sakurai: Probably the best place to start if you want an in depth yet introductory course.

    But it really depends on YOU, I for one could only learn scattering from Landau, but found the book less than perfect for many other topics. Others in my class had quite the opposite reaction. It depends on what "clicks" for you, and how deep you want to go into what topics.

    Balam