Based on the author’s long-standing course, this book provides a complete and comprehensive text for students in physics, maths, chemistry and engineering needing a detailed introduction to quantum mechanics.
Written in a lucid and engaging style, the author takes readers from an overview of classical mechanics and the historical development of quantum theory through to advanced topics. The mathematical aspects of quantum theory necessary for a firm grasp of the subject are developed in the early chapters, but an effort is made to motivate that formalism on physical grounds. Including animated figures and their respective Mathematica® codes, this book provides a complete and comprehensive text for students in physics, maths, chemistry and engineering needing an accessible introduction to quantum mechanics.
Part I Fundamentals
1 The Classical State
2 Origins of Quantum Mechanics
3 The Wave-like Behavior of Electrons
4 The Quantum State
5 Dynamics of the Quantum State
6 Energy and Uncertainty
7 Operators and Observations
Part II Exact Solutions
8 Rectangular Potentials
9 The Harmonic Oscillator
10 Symmetry and Degeneracy
11 Angular Momentum
12 The Hydrogen Atom
Part III Aspects of Spin
13 Electron Spin
14 The Addition of Angular Momentum
15 Identical Particles
16 Live Wires and Dead Stars
Part IV Approximation Methods
17 Time-Independent Perturbation Theory
18 Time-Dependent Perturbation Theory
19 Atoms and Light
20 The WKB Approximation
21 The Variational Method
22 Scattering Theory
Part V Advanced Topics
23 Bras and Kets and Canonical Quantization
24 Entangled States
25 The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
26 The Feynman Path Integral
27 A Glimpse of Quantum Field Theory
Bibliography