Want to learn about quantum physics - where to start?

[caibbor]

I'm new to the forums, so first of all, hello!

I am a life-long computer scientist and most of my scientific knowledge revolves around that. I have recently found myself attracted to the fascinating world of quantum physics. I'm currently watching whatever documentaries I can about it, but that obviously doesn't really cover much of the real mathematics and chalk-board proofs behind it. That is, if quantum physics actually involves mathematics since it's about randomness and unpredictability and... so you see, I'm a total newb to this stuff.

I know hardly anything about quantom physics or physics in general and would like to change that. What books, websites, articles, etc., would you recommend?

 

[phinds]

The only really good recommendation I can give you is DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT take TV shows seriously. They are very entertaining and often have really nifty pictures and graphics, but they are entertainment not science.

 

[NegativeDept]

I made a list of math topics for QM here.

Some people said my list is overly ambitious, and those people might be right. It was originally meant for a mathematics major who wanted to do graduate work in quantum information theory. I do think this is essential advice for anyone learning QM, though:

The biggest problem with quantum mechanics is that almost every statement is either 0) ambiguous or 1) full of math jargon. So it's very important to know how to translate the math jargon.

In particular, I think every sensible statement I've ever read in QM was written in the language of vector spaces, matrices, and eigenvalues.