What's the Best Introductory Book on Quantum Field Theory?

[bartosz1982]

hi,

actually i am searching a good introduction into quantum field theory.
the book should be like the lectures of feynman (The Feynman Lectures on Physics), i mean, not so mathematically as usually.

thx for answering

 

[dextercioby]

It's quite difficult to find a book which is particularly careless with mathematics. I'd say a useful reading and some neat calculations you can find in Anthony Zee's "Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell".

Daniel.

 

[Jheriko]

"QED: The strange theory of light and matter", by Feynman is quite a good read, and it uses pretty much no mathematics. At the same time though it doesn't go very deep into the quantum field theory.

It won't give you enough information to do useful calculations though.

 

[StatMechGuy]

It's quite difficult to find a book which is particularly careless with mathematics. I'd say a useful reading and some neat calculations you can find in Anthony Zee's "Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell".

Daniel.

I actually found that Zee was not a terribly enlightening book unless you already knew quantum field theory (I didn't). I pulled out Itzykson and Zuber, which is an okay book, but it doesn't have exercises, so I'm still a bit flakey. I'm just waiting for the quantum field theory sequence to be offered up next fall so I can get it in a class, which is probably the best place since there really is no Sakurai of quantum field theory.

 

[Daverz]

You could try Diagrammatica. I read it about 10 years ago, and it seemed to go really well until about 3/4 of the way through the book where the author seemed to get impatient with trying to explain things, started waving his hands around furiously, and seemed to basically say "nevermind, just do it this way". Still, I think that may be the kind of book you're looking for.

I have a couple of others that are meant for "advanced undergrads", like A Modern Introduction to Quantum Field Theory and
Aitchison and Hey vol. 1, but I haven't had a chance to get very deeply into them. Ryder is also pretty easy to read. And then there's Halzen & Martin, which is more phenomenological.

Oh, and I just ordered a used copy of Feynman's Quantum Electrodynamics. Used paperback copies are cheap. We'll see how that goes.