Quantum Physics beginner books?

[stillwood]

Hi, can anyone recommend some good beginner quantum physics books? I don't have much knowledge of the subject and am looking for a good starting point.

 

[bhobba]

Depends on your math background.

Assuming a smattering of Calculus I really like Lenny Susskinds books:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465075681/?tag=pfamazon01-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465036678/?tag=pfamazon01-20

There is also companion video lectures:
http://theoreticalminimum.com/

And if you don't know calculus its really so important becoming acquainted with it is well worth your time - it will enrich your understanding of QM, and physics in general, immeasurably:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471827223/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Thanks
Bill

 

[carllooper]

The Suskind video lectures are great. A pleasure to watch. Very accessible.

C

 

[atyy]

Susskind's book is very good, but it doesn't collect all the postulates of quantum mechanics in one place, instead he prefers to spread them out in various chapters as he takes you through the subject. As a complement, one can use Braam Gaasbeek's "An Introductory Course on Quantum Mechanics" http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4184, which gathers the postulates in section 4.3.2. They are not the most general postulates, but they are general enough that the subsequent generalizations are technical. The one thing I don't like about Gaasbeek's book is the last chapter on philosophy, which seems to me to explain the problem wrongly, focussing on randomness, rather than the lack of definite outcomes from reversible evolution of the wave function.

 

[td21]

Richard feynman vol 3

 

[stillwood]

Thanks all for your replies. I have minimal education in calculus, so I need a refresher course. I think Ill start with that and maybe one of Susskinds books. I've never read any of his works, but I've heard of him countless times.

Just curious, has anyone read Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert? Thoughts?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[bhobba]

Just curious, has anyone read Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert? Thoughts?

Yea - read it years ago.

Its in the pop-sci mould and espouses this conciousness being involved stuff (from Wikipdeia):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Herbert_(physicist)
Herbert supports a holistic interpretation of quantum physics. He has argued for "quantum animism" in which mind permeates the world at every level. Werner Krieglstein wrote regarding his quantum animism:
“Herbert's quantum animism differs from traditional animism in that it avoids assuming a dualistic model of mind and matter. Traditional dualism assumes that some kind of spirit inhabitats a body and makes it move, a ghost in the machine. Herbert's quantum animism presents the idea that every natural system has an inner life, a conscious center, from which it directs and observes its action.'

It really is a very backwater view amongst professional physicists, even though he is an actual physicist. IMHO, and I don't like to say this, but his views verge on quackery. Forget them.

Here is a much better primer on what QM is REALLY about:
http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html

Nothing to do with pop-sci mysticism.

Thanks
Bill