Quantum Physics For Dummies by Steven Holzner | (PDF) Free Download

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Ebook Info

  • Published: 2013
  • Number of pages: 336 pages
  • Format: PDF
  • File Size: 5.95 MB
  • Authors: Steven Holzner

Description

Your plain-English guide to understanding and working with the micro worldQuantum Physics For Dummies, Revised Edition helps make quantum physics understandable and accessible. From what quantum physics can do for the world to understanding hydrogen atoms, readers will get complete coverage of the subject, along with numerous examples to help them tackle the tough equations. Compatible with classroom text books and courses, Quantum Physics For Dummies, Revised Edition lets students study at their own paces and helps them prepare for graduate or professional exams. Coverage includes:The Schrodinger Equation and its ApplicationsThe Foundations of Quantum PhysicsVector NotationSpinScattering Theory, Angular Momentum, and moreQuantum physics — also called quantum mechanics or quantum field theory — can be daunting for even the most dedicated student or enthusiast of science, math, or physics. This friendly, concise guide makes this challenging subject understandable and accessible, from atoms to particles to gases and beyond. Plus, it’s packed with fully explained examples to help you tackle the tricky equations like a pro!Compatible with any classroom course — study at your own pace and prepare for graduate or professional examsYour journey begins here — understand what quantum physics is and what kinds of problems it can solveKnow the basic math — from state vectors to quantum matrix manipulations, get the foundation you need to proceedPut quantum physics to work — make sense of Schrödinger’s equation and handle particles bound in square wells and harmonic oscillatorsSolve problems in three dimensions — use the full operators to handle wave functions and eigenvectors to find the natural wave functions of a systemDiscover the latest research — learn the cutting-edge quantum physics theories that aim to explain the universe itself

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Steven Holzner is an award-winning author of technical and science books (like Physics For Dummies and Differential Equations For Dummies). He graduated from MIT and did his PhD in physics at Cornell University, where he was on the teaching faculty for 10 years. He’s also been on the faculty of MIT. Steve also teaches corporate groups around the country.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐When I hear “for dummies” I expect the very basics are explained. Not with this book. This book jumps into statistics and discrete math by the second chapter. The math discussions are written with the assumption you already have a background in the concepts. This is NOT FOR DUMMIES!I was looking for a book that would spend more time talking about concepts like waves verses particles, different types of particles, and discussion of things like how does Schrodinger’s Cat example explain a quantum principle, etc…..The book glosses over things that I needed explaining. Such as graph. And the explanations of the graph mention variables not shown on the graph but are clearly part of the material, yet without explanation

⭐Before buying this book, understand what it’s trying to accomplish. I give the book four stars because it partly filled in a knowledge gap for me, and I’ve found no other books that filled that gap. Specifically, it presents some of the actual math behind quantum physics, but not so much that it’s overwhelming for a person with a strong math background (calculus and some linear algebra). Some of the math was a little beyond me, but I benefited from the rest of it. I’ve read a plethora of books on quantum physics, quantum entanglement, etc. and many are very good but don’t go beyond the conceptual into the mathematical. This book fulfilled a need for me.But I don’t think it’s a good book to start with if you want to learn about the absurd and impossible world of quantum physics. Read some of the better conceptual books. “Thirty Years that Shook Physics” by George Gamow. “The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene. Try “Entanglement” by Amir Aczel if quantum entanglement fascinates you.Also, Quantum Physics for Dummies is not thorough enough to be a textbook. I assume a real physics major would go much more deeply into the math.

⭐I bought a used version of the book and it was in very good condition just like the seller said it would be. I had looked at a physical copy of the book before purchasing it on Amazon so I knew what the contents looked like, and how much background I needed. I am a chemistry major in going into my senior year, so I pretty much have all of the pre-requisites for this book. This book explains concepts (and some math) well enough for me to get a taste of them, but I often need to look up supplementary details online, which for me is no problem since I wanted to go in depth with some of the material anyway. Overall, this book is a good purchase if you have some background in math and physics, but a lot of people think that they can just jump into quantum mechanics without a lot of background and unfortunately that is not the case here. My advice would be to “look inside” the available pages of the book and read the assumptions that the author makes about your knowledge.

⭐I would highly recommend this book to anyone studying Quantum Physics at school or self-study.It is a great supplement to the many textbooks on Quantum Physics.I’ve bought many other good reference books on Quantum Physics, all of them that included extensive math,but I actually got through this entire book, and understood what was covered.For that alone, I have to give this book five stars.While many have expressed frustration with the implied “Dummies” category,I have to tell you, that for someone who has struggled with Quantum Physics through free college lecturesavailable on iTunes U or YouTube, this author did a great job covering a large amount of the core material.The book is not just lectures notes.The author explains the material as he presents it, something that is missing from most text books.I was so impressed with the book, that I bought both the paper copy and Kindle ebook.This book and Quantum Mechanics DeMystified are two of the best books I’ve found of this subject.Neither is easy, but for those who are struggling with this subject material,I would highly recommend both.Of the two books mentioned, this one is easier.But I would give both books five stars.A word of warning.This material is challenging and even hard.If you intend to take on the math, then check out these two books.If you are looking for an excellent intro to the Quantum world,check out “Quantum A Guide for the Perplexed” by Jim Al-Khalili.

⭐I did not like this book because I thought it would describe Quantum Physics and how everything is interconnected on the sub atomic level, and that it would also discuss time and space. But this book just has page after page of mathematical equations, with a little bit of text that I do not understand. So I am buying another book called “Quantum Physics for Beginners” instead, and hope it is a lot better. I am disappointed with this particular “For Dummies” book because it should be classified as a book for advanced mathematicians, not beginners. When I tried to return it, I found out that Amazon does not accept USPS returns, and I am unable to get to the UPS location to return it. So I am stuck with a book I do not like or want.

⭐It was alarming to see the one-star reviews of this book at 24 percent, higher than any other professionally-produced work I can remember. But I wasn’t put off buying since most of the complaints were concerned about the complexity of the mathematics. This is what I expected and what I wanted from the book; I’ve read enough “pop science” books to want something with a little more meat. Learning the mathematical foundations of quantum physics is a necessary and inescapable fact of understanding it properly.However, after working through the book, I think the negative reviewers have a point. I feel the problem is not so much the maths but the context and order in which information is presented. The author may have been hampered by the formatting requirements of writing a Dummies book. For example, on page 28, after some fairly simple stuff about matrices we are suddenly informed by a hand icon that we should REMEMBER:”In general, a set of vectors phi-N in Hilbert space is linearly independent if the only solution to the following equation is that all the coefficients a-N = 0;[equation]That is, as long as you can’t write any one vector as a linear combination of the others, the vectors are linearly independent and so form a valid basis in Hilbert space.”The problem isn’t the equation. It’s that this statement appears with no context and, at this stage, no reason given as to why we should “remember” it. We might be able to guess that reason (if we have the necessary background in vector spaces or co-ordinate systems) but I don’t think we should have to. We haven’t even yet been told what a Hilbert space is. (It’s one of the author’s stated “Foolish Assumptions” that we’re already supposed to know about them).In a more natural expositional format the author would not be able to get away with such a glaring lack of context. It would be obvious to him or his editors that something didn’t make sense here. The author would be forced to lead into things logically, by first explaining the need for a particular property and then by explaining the mathematics of how it’s accomplished.I dispute the statement on page 5 that you can “jump in anywhere” in the book. If you do, you’ll have a lot of back-referencing to do.To understand quantum physics you do indeed have to understand some complicated maths – there’s no getting away from that – but the truth is that I’ve seen it explained better. At the time of writing there’s a PDF called (somewhat understatedly) “Quantum Physics Notes” by J Cresser, which is freely downloadable from the Macquarie University website. It introduces each concept in a far more natural way, flowing from the historical context to the modern – without shying away from any of the mathematics. If I could go back and buy that document in book form instead of Quantum Physics for Dummies, I would.However, unlike many other reviewers here I won’t be returning this book. After I’ve finished going through the Cresser PDF I’ll revisit the book and will no doubt find a lot of useful information within. For this reason, and for the fact that I learned some things from it (for example – what a “ket” is) I will not give it a one-star review.Quantum Physics for Dummies strains the Dummies series concept to breaking point – and maybe beyond. I feel the subject went out of the series editors’ zones of expertise and was accepted for publication at a too-early stage. It would benefit from a rewrite, shifting the focus to the introductory and leaving the later topics to more advanced texts.

⭐This book is very good, however it could do with a bit more of a “primer” for those readers that are rusty on their maths or have inexperience in matrices andIn other words it is written in a very user friendly style and it does explain things like bra-ket notation and runs through the fundamentals pretty well, but then it picks up the pace so rapidly to complex areas that it becomes unfathomable, it needs a more gentle and gradual transition to the hard stuff. The problem is it ends up being just like any other quantum physics book with scary equations, this means as a “dummies” guide it is mislabelled, as it can only help you scale the dizzy heights of quantum physics if you are a fully seasoned Chris Bonnington with crampons and an oxygen mask with years of high altitude alpine climbing behind you. It is not written for dummies or newbies.Nevertheless it is a good book and well written and so I have given it a generous four stars.

⭐Most definitely not for dummies. There are other, far better, books on the subject suitable for dummies such as me. On the plus side some of the cartoons made me laugh out loud.

⭐This is an excellent work for university students, but of little use to the layman unless they’re into higher maths..

⭐This book says it is aimed at people “taking a college course in Quantum Physics”If you take all the complex equations out, you end up with about 5 sentences.No idea why this is published in the Dummies seriesProbably OK for rocket scientists.Chapter cartoons are OK

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