How to go about learning Quantum Mechanics?

[billy_boy_999]

i'm a qm neophyte as well but i have found especially illuminating and equation free -

The New Quantum Universe by Hey, Walters

QED by Richard Feynman <---I would say this is one of the best 'popular' science books ever written

And any of Feynman's lectures on QM...

 

[lomion2]

A good introductory text that covers QM thoroughly is Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by David J. Griffiths.

It assumes a competent math background. You'll want to have learned the equivalent of a one semester linear algebra course, a year of single variable calculus, a semester of multivariable calculus, a semester of Partial Differential Equations with a focus on Fourier Analysis and possibly some complex analysis. The class I took on PDE and Fourier Analysis was geared for prepping me for QM and the book we used was called "Partial Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems with Applications" by Mark A. Pinsky. and we covered chapters 0-3, and 5. The book was terrible, but it's a good place to start if you want to see what kind of math you need. As for the complex analysis, you only need it for the latter parts of Griffiths book, but if you cover the equivalent of chapters 1-3.2 of Complex Variables by Stephen D. Fisher you'll be fine, you'll need to have some single and multivariable calc to understand complex analysis but nothing more.

Griffiths will try to give a cursory explanation of the PDE, complex analysis, group theory, or whatever kind of math you're dealing with in particular section of the book, but unless you have an insanely high IQ you're probably not going to be able to learn the math from Griffiths alone, which is where the above books come into play.

If you just want to see what quantum mechanics is like, and don't care for actually learning how to do it yourself, you can probably use Griffith's book with just a course of linear algebra and single variable calculus.

 

[ZapperZ]

Note that you are responding to a thread that is about 4 years old.

Zz.

 

[haushofer]

I used Griffiths book on quantum mechanics. It's written in a funny way, but I used some additional notes to fill in the gaps he is leaving behind ( serious flaws of the book are that the Schrödinger equation is thrown in right away without decent explanation, or the lack of use of bra-ket notation ). Nevertheless, I think it's a readable start.

 

[dekajyo]

Hey, I did a full year course on quantum mechanics, I did it in the level of Resnick and Eisberg and Griffiths... Now I want to proceed further in the summer and start with Heisenberg Matrix Mechanics as well... I want recommendation on how to start... I'm thinking of starting with Merzbacher and R.Shankar...