- #1
einKI
- 10
- 0
Hi
I used the last few month two make me familiar with quantum mechanics and read two books. The Feynman lectures on physics and Principles of Quantum Mechanics (R. Shanker).
I think I have no problems with the bra-ket notation and solving the Schroedinger equation for some simple particle systems. I'm struggeling a bit with QFT however.
I also have some question which may not be that important
1)Why does anybody bother about the path integral formalism? I mean in every textbook you read it is more complicated and doesn't give any new insight and so on and even when I understand the idea of the path integral I just can't think of any normal system you can solve by taking a integral over infinite many pathes.
2)Why do most textbooks spend so much time to solve the problems exactly? I mean not even a hydrogen atom (if you don't take all the approximations like CM etc...) is exactly solvable so would it not be better to spend more time on numerical solutions to the problem or perturbation theory?
Ultimately I want to do physics with the Standard Model but I see two big problems on the way.
First of all I did some reading into QFT but even though I can understand the concept I'm not really sure how you can ever apply QFT to a real physical system.
I also read something about the standard model and I can understand the concept of symmetry groups and the gauge groups and why you need a symmetry breaking to get masses for the W und Z bosons.
But let's say I have a system with some particles which interact how can I describe such a system and solve it or get a numerical solution.
So the concrete question: Is is there any book, article or paper you can recommend to learn that?
thx especially to everyone who read until to this point :-)
einKI
I used the last few month two make me familiar with quantum mechanics and read two books. The Feynman lectures on physics and Principles of Quantum Mechanics (R. Shanker).
I think I have no problems with the bra-ket notation and solving the Schroedinger equation for some simple particle systems. I'm struggeling a bit with QFT however.
I also have some question which may not be that important
1)Why does anybody bother about the path integral formalism? I mean in every textbook you read it is more complicated and doesn't give any new insight and so on and even when I understand the idea of the path integral I just can't think of any normal system you can solve by taking a integral over infinite many pathes.
2)Why do most textbooks spend so much time to solve the problems exactly? I mean not even a hydrogen atom (if you don't take all the approximations like CM etc...) is exactly solvable so would it not be better to spend more time on numerical solutions to the problem or perturbation theory?
Ultimately I want to do physics with the Standard Model but I see two big problems on the way.
First of all I did some reading into QFT but even though I can understand the concept I'm not really sure how you can ever apply QFT to a real physical system.
I also read something about the standard model and I can understand the concept of symmetry groups and the gauge groups and why you need a symmetry breaking to get masses for the W und Z bosons.
But let's say I have a system with some particles which interact how can I describe such a system and solve it or get a numerical solution.
So the concrete question: Is is there any book, article or paper you can recommend to learn that?
thx especially to everyone who read until to this point :-)
einKI
Last edited: