Books that assume nothing?

1. Aug 22, 2007

ice109

right now im reading Math methods by jeffreys

https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Mathematical-Physics-Harold-Jeffreys/dp/0521054265

and im only 12 pages into it but i like it a lot because it assumes nothing and proves almost everything. hell the first subsection was on what a number is. i tend to ask way to many questions and demand extremely thorough proof and very strict arguments so i would really like a book that developed everything from scratch. another reason i would need a book like this is because i haven't had a lot of the prereqs like classical mechanics and e&m or analysis and abstract algebra. i'm interested either physics or math books

for example i've been looking for a QM book to study and i've met with varying levels assumption and hand waiving. one book didn't prove the wave equation, just invoked it, another invoked hamiltonian mechanics without any development.

i'm sure a lot of you would say that these are unreasonable expectations as one should know Classical mechanics before studying QM and so i'd like to say that i don't intend to skip anything, i have a CM book, but i would like to study a couple of these things concurrently.

is it really that ridiculous to expect a book to be self contained?

2. Aug 22, 2007

trinitron

What do you mean by prove the wave equation? If you mean Schrodinger's equation it is not something one proves, it is taken as an axiom of the theory. One can try to 'motivate' it, but not prove it. If you don't know Hamiltonian mechanics I suggest you pick up Shankar's book on QM, which is very thorough and rigorous compared to Griffiths, etc. It has a chapter on the math you need (though it bs's the functional analysis) and a chapter on classical mechanics as well.

3. Aug 22, 2007

ice109

no the classical wave equation, i know the schroedinger equation can't be derived, i'll check out shankar's book

4. Aug 22, 2007

Daverz

Baym's Lectures on Quantum Mechanics has an interesting heuristic "derivation" of the Schroedinger equation.