Undergraduate modern physics and condensed matter physics courses

[planck999]

Do they really teach and help anything? I am taking them for my nanoengineering undergraduate program. The textbooks are solid state physics by j r hook and concepts of modern physics by mcgraw hill and r b singh introduction to modern physics and introduction to quantum mechanics by david j griffiths

 

[malawi_glenn]

Courses do not teach by themselves.

I have some difficulty what you are really after. Are you meaning if they help you become a better nanoengineer, prepared for grad school or what?

 

[planck999]

Courses do not teach by themselves.

I have some difficulty what you are really after. Are you meaning if they help you become a better nanoengineer, prepared for grad school or what?

All of them also do they really teach quantum mechanics at advanced level?

 

[malawi_glenn]

All of them also do they really teach quantum mechanics at advanced level?

Those courses no, modern physics is more about getting a feeling for what's to come. Solid state is usually a very broad course where you get many appetizers for what is out there - usually don't go too deep in any of the subject matters and thus covers everything from crystal structure, heat capacity, band structure of solids, electric and magnetic pheonomena.

 

[vanhees71]

The Quantum Mechanics book by Griffiths often seems to confuse students, given from my impression in the quantum section of this forum. I don't know the book very well. So I can't say for sure, whether it's really that bad though.

 

[malawi_glenn]

The Quantum Mechanics book by Griffiths often seems to confuse students, given from my impression in the quantum section of this forum.

Aren't students confused about intro QM in general? ;) And Griffiths is the far most popular book(?)

 

[vanhees71]

I don't know, why this book is so popular. Given the confusion of the students, it's a bit surprising that it is. In a way you are right in saying that intro QM is confusing. It's not so much the math, which is less complicated than for the the usually before taught classical electrodynamics, but the way of thinking you have to adapt from classical to quantum physics a lot. If the students are, however, confused by the math of the book, it's even more difficult!

 

[malawi_glenn]

My first in QM used Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Phillips, it was an okay book and we had a good teacher. Seconds course we used Sakurai and also a very good teacher. I did not like the sakurai book that much, mostly because of the typesetting I think. I heard there is a newer edition now though.

The focus was more of the pragmatic nature, how to calculate stuff in QM not so much into different interpretations and stuff. "If you can not calculate it, don't ask about it" was the attitude so to say.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

The Quantum Mechanics book by Griffiths often seems to confuse students, given from my impression in the quantum section of this forum. I don't know the book very well. So I can't say for sure, whether it's really that bad though.

My class was based on the Griffiths book, and I did not like.

A bit of background. I majored in Pure Mathematics, and not physics. Which resulted in me taking physics classes for fun. Anyhow, I liked Griffiths Electrodynamics book. But Griffiths in his quantum book, avoids mathematics, which makes the book obfuscating. Not to mention the too chatty nature of book. Reminds me of Gilberts Strang Linear Algebra in that regards. I found both of these two books terrible. Moreover, it was hard to do the exercises, without looking at supplementary books. Griffiths did not contain all the material needed to answer them, or building on previous exercises. One can look at the solutions, but as a math major, I picked up the habit of never looking at them. Which is a bit ridiculous since most of the problems in Griffiths were easy, once reading the relavent sections in Shankar.

I mainly supplemented with Shankar, which I believe, is a superior book.

But maybe too hard for Engineering students?

 

[Demystifier]

The Quantum Mechanics book by Griffiths often seems to confuse students

Isn't it a good thing? Because, as Bohr told us, if you are not confused by QM, you have not understood it.

More seriously
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G15LW25/?tag=pfamazon01-20
More than 1100 ratings, average mark 4.6 out of 5. I think many are confused only because many read it.

 

[vanhees71]

Well, it's sometimes very surprising, which books get good rankings at Amazon. I had a look at it and didn't want to have it. The same goes with Zee's QFT in a nutshell.

 

[malawi_glenn]

I kinda like Zee it was my second exposore. My first was peskin and schroder and i did not like it, too many details skipped. My first love was srednicki