Quantum mechanics books for a beginner

pkarnett

Hello,

I was wondering what some good books on quantum mechanics would be for a layman? I am very interested in the subject and need a place to really get started. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

smallphi

Griffiths

Daverz

What kind of math background do you have?

You might try

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechan.../dp/0486445305

lightarrow

Introduction to the Quantum Theory - David Park.

DeadWolfe

I second Griffiths

robphy

For a layman,
I'd first suggest
Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Th.../dp/0691024170

For something more advanced,
this looked interesting
Morrison, Understanding Quantum Physics: A User's Manual, Vol. 1
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-.../dp/0137479085
(I once considered it for my choice of textbook.)

smallphi

Feynman may have been a great scientist but can't explain a squat. I have read his QED book when I was trying to understand QED - it's a total conceptual confusion. Maybe one can make some sense out of it if he/she already knows the material but for beginner it's totally inappropriate.

jtbell

I use it myself. It's different from most other QM books in that it fills in most of the mathematical steps that other books gloss over or leave to exercises. It spends a lot of time discussing mathematical technique, in addition to the conceptual stuff about QM. And the writing style is more conversational than other books.

The downside is that the mathematical details slow down the conceptual development, and you have to search through a lot of stuff when you're looking for one particular point or example.

My students usually need all the help they can get with the math, so the detail is worthwhile for me. Students with a good mathematical background would probably find it excruciatingly slow-paced.

CompuChip

I third (?) that
Still by far my favorite book on QM, and IMO the clearest introduction. Also Griffiths has a clear font, boxed formulas, clear sectioning and plenty of whitespace, all points that I personally appreciate in a book. As for the contents, it covers basically everything you would want to learn in an introductory QM course (or maybe even two of them); starting by an intuitive approach, in the second part developing the formalism and comparing it to the results from the fist part.

I strongly suggest you buy this book anyway, apart from any standard work like Sakurai or the others mentioned in this thread you may want to have as a reference later.

robphy

For the layman (as requested by the OP),
the QED book is probably best for "quantum mechanics" (in general).

(Just in case there's any confusion... the little QED book is different from the little "Quantum Electrodynamics" book.)

maxislinux

For those beginning the subject, you must have a look at Robert Eisberg's book on the subject. A quick read through Alice in Quantumland (Gilmore's) should help you get past the screen-of-terror that keeps newbies from just "doing" the subject. Once these are done.. try Greiner, or Schiff, or Shankar. You must read Dirac's book (Principles..) and Watch Leonard's lectures on YouTube (they are also on SoiT, if you have iTunes)

maxislinux

by-the-way can I suggest links for getting the e-books or is that illegal ?

George Jones

Physics Forums does not allows links to sites that violate copyrights.

CompuChip

maxislinux, you were one day early.
If you had waited just 24 more hours, the dates between your post and the last one before that would have matched :-)