Talk:Introduction to quantum mechanics/Archive 1: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 01:45, 7 July 2017

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:You shouldn't be surprised or disheartened by the difficulty. Consider the the man who made the basic solution to the problems involved despaired of ever being able to figure out how to describe and predict the seemingly perverse twists and turns of sub-atomic interactions.

:You could have a look at ''Introducing Quantum Theory'', by J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate, {{ISBN |1-84046-577-8}}. To me it seems just a little bit too simple in some respects. You could also have a look at the relevant parts of George Gamow's ''One, Two, Three...Infinity.'' It's an old book by a real physicist who made a strong attempt to write simply without falsifying anything. [[User:Patrick0Moran|P0M]] 22:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

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:The reaction to the "bare facts" of quantum mechanics is frequently something like, "How can you justify that nutty idea?" So just stating the "bare facts" will not be satisfactory to those who do not easily submit to authority. (And if everybody just accepted authority we would probably still be Platonists.)

:I don't know of anyone who has gotten the dope on QM quickly. If you are interested in a series of things that can reliably be memorized and repeated, then I would suggest 'Introducing Quantum Theory'', by J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate, {{ISBN |1-84046-577-8}}. If you were to get rid of the illustrations (pictures of Neils Bohr, et al. for instance) you would only have a few pages of text.

:As an undergraduate in the physics department of a good univsity I had a very uneven experience during the three trimesters. The first trimester was mechanics, and a bit difficult for me because mechanics involved calculus, and calculus was new for me. The second trimester was on electricity, and I got an A. The reason wasn't because the instructor's ability to teach had improved. It was because I had accidentally provided myself with a very thorough grounding in electricity through all of the gadgets, crystal radios, home-made telegraph sets, etc., etc. that I had made going back to my days in primary school. I already knew in very practical terms what happens when two resistors are connected in series and two are connected in parallel, so I didn't have to memorize the information at exam time. And all the way along I had attempted to understand in terms of the "lives of electrons" what was really going on in the interactions expressed in the formulae of physics that were pertinent to my little projects. So what was to others abstract and counter-intuitive (how can two resistors working together give less resistance than one resistor working alone?) was to me concrete and natural.