Is Morrison's Book Ideal for Real-World QM Applications?

[darkchild]

I've been looking for a good QM book for a while, and I'm considering purchasing Morrison's book. I've already completed an undergrad QM course with Griffith's. I would like to find a book that is strongly oriented towards relating QM theory to the real world, rather than just explaining how to solve problems on idealized examples. I would especially like to have a comprehensive explanation of the experimental basis of the theory (what happened in the lab, how it was interpreted, what that led to, etc.), but examples of actual laboratory applications would be great as well.

If you've read this book, did you find that it covered either of these topics well? I'm open to other suggestions.

Thanks.

 

[Katheryn-Rose]

Hi darkchild,

I am pleased to hear you are looking for a good text on QM. It is amazing what a difference it can make to have a text that suits your thinking style.

Personally, I loved Morrison's book: comprehensive, clear and very thorough. It was the book I learned QM from, and I often refer back to it for the basics. The build-up to quantisation and the tenents of quantum mechanics from wave-particle duality is done really well. It probably covers the same things as Griffith's; but to my mind in a nicer way. It's also more undergrad-orientated.

It has a good introduction to the double-slit experiment; but tends to put more emphasis on problem-solving than on experiment, which is not what you are looking for, I think.

Feynman's lectures on QM handle the experimental basis for QM very well, and
"Quantum mechanics" by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, B. Diu and F. Laloe
has quite a nice introduction to the double-slit experiment.

And if you want actual laboratory applications of QM, I would suggest any book on nuclear physics or nuclear reactions (Wong is a nice one); or particle physics (Martin and Shaw is the *best*).

Happy reading!
Katheryn

 

[bhobba]

The other book you should look at is Ballentine - QM - A Modern Development:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/9810241054/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Basically it develops QM from just two axioms, and gives the most fundamental explanation of Schroedinger's equation etc based on symmetry, specifically that QM probabilities are frame independent.

Thanks
Bill