What Is Quantum Mechanics? a Physics Adventure

For the really intelligent layman, this is far and away the best book on Quantum Mechanics. Most of the math is algebra or just a bit beyond, so don't be too afraid; the reward is a real understanding of how and why quantum mechanics developed and why it's so important. This -- along with all other Lexx Books -- is an absolute masterpiece of explanation and is worth every hour of your time. Pay NO attention to reviews whining about the presentation as those portions of the book are less than one percent of the entire work. An excellent, excellent book... for the fairly bright!!

I do not think that this book deserves a negative review despite the silly humor or childish cartoons. This is neither a comic book nor is intended to be, but just in the process of learning of qunatum mechanics things such as these help to avoid the intimidation of reader and keep him sort of hanging around into learning this stuff. This is not meant for experts who may already have patterned a mind set on this subject. This is for a beginning reader who has some background in liberal arts physics and the like and who wishes to know what is really meant by quantum mechanics and why. Experts who might read this may find that the "holes" in their understanding is filled by reading the book--a fact that may make them depressed of the idea that they may have thought that they have understood quantum mechanics prior to reading this book.This book is simply unpretentious, historically structured and focuses on clarity as much as possible while trying to derive all steps in mathematical development--an important style of presentation necessary to enable a reader to stick to the book rather than a masterful book that author may likely to intimidate a reader while demonstrating his prowess in mathematics--I see this too common in books on quantum mechanics. Advanced QM books are often seem to be written to sort of "impress" members of the subject community that how the author has laboriously done a book masterfully or how deeply he has mastered the subject--This book is quite different from this style--It is quite readable, understandable and makes you to appreciate what teaching really is. I do not think there is any other quantum mechanics book that is as simple as this one and easy to understand in one reading, with some calculus background. This type of teaching sytle, from the roots and in a historical context is rarely employed today--I cannot think of any quantum mechanics book that builds every element of the concept from the roots like it is done in this book. When I look at text books, it is all to common to see concepts and facts presented as if they were "invented" in one fly but not developed as an evolutionary development where very bright people have contributed along the way. Although it may not be possible to present material in a historical context in every subject, this book does it admirably well in the important field of quantum mechanics--the characters including Wien, Max Planck, Bohr, Sommerfield, Born Heisenberg and Schrodinger are all part of this drama and their roles and contributions are well illustrated in cartoons, which I thought was nice. Besides, I do not think that this is entirely written by students--I think it has been greatly assisted by someone who has worked with Heisenberg (It is remarked somewhere in the text albeit indirectly).I thought the matrix mechanics, the way it is done in this book and in showing its correspondence to Schrodinger's equation is simply awesome !I am Professor in an engineering depar

This is a wonderful book. The evolution of quantum mechanics becomes a captivating adventure story about how scientists struggled to explain the puzzling result of experiments involving light and electrons in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. Reading this book you understand both the essentials of quantum mechanics and why its conclusions contradict our intuitive sense of how the world works. If you want to understand quantum mechanics starting with little or no knowledge this is the book for you. But even for those of you who are not dying to learn quantum mechanics, this still might be a book worth reading. More and more quantum mechanics does matter. Quantum mechanics provides not only an "explanation" of some of the most fundamental behavior in our world, but also is increasingly a part of our mythology (e.g. the uncertainty principle) and probably of future engineering (e.g. the quantum computer).As wonderful as this book is, I would make a few observations:1. If you are really serious about understanding the underpinnings of quantum mechanics, or simply think this is the kind of thing you just won't get enough of, start first with the other book in this series, "Who is Fourier?" A fair amount of the mathematics in quantum mechanics relies on material covered in "Who is Fourier?" If you are going to get serious about this you might as well read the books in what would be a more satisfying order. 2. Be forewarned, the style of this book is not that of your typical scholarly book. This is not a weakness; in fact, it provides a warm charm, much the way the odd English in a Japanese video game does. The book is well translated from the original Japanese, but some of the unusual cultural differences remain. In several sections, there are perhaps a few too many references comparing learning science with learning another language. Fortunately, these sections can be easily skimmed.3. One of the most fascinating results to come out of quantum mechanics is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This book does a wonderful job laying the foundation for this principle. The book spends a lot of time going through Schrodinger's equations deriving the formulas for quantum mechanics from the assumption that the electron is a wave rather than a particle. This, along with Heisenberg's particle and matrix basis for determining quantum mechanics, provides the pivotal models for the uncertainty principle. Yet I found the treatment of the uncertainty principal itself disappointingly brief.4. There seems to be a pro-Heisenberg bias to the book. The Heisenberg story is at the center of the book, and it is briefly noted that one of the senior teachers at the Japanese school where this book was written was an associate of Heisenberg's. I can't say for certain that this treatment is biased without knowing more of the history, but that is certainly the impression one gets."What is Quantum Mechanics?" is organized into six chapters. The fir

This book delivers what it promises. I would especially recommend it to teachers. Quantum physics does not satisfy our physical intuition, so popularizations often sacrifice rigor.This book impressed me with the way it eases us into an acceptance of some potentially frustrating ideas. Those "quantum ideas" are presented both plausibly and with some rigor. I am a more educated man for having read this book.(A footnote: I was especially pleased to see mathematics described as a language. It is, indeed, a formal language.)

As a professor (of management science) I can really appreciate a book is sound pedagogically. This book is a brilliantly developed introduction to quantum mechanics. All you need to understand is basic algebra. THe authors never skip a step!