Following the path by which humanity learned quantum mechanics can lead to an improved teaching and understanding of the fundamental theory and the origins of its perceived limitations. The purpose of this textbook is to retrace the development of quantum mechanics by investigating primary sources (including original published papers and letters) with attention to their timing and influence. Placing the development of quantum mechanics in its historical context, from the nascent philosophical notions of matter, atoms, and void in Ancient Greece, to their scientific realization in the 19th and 20th centuries, the book culminates with an examination of the current state of the field and an introduction to quantum information and computing.
Author(s): Robert Golub, Steve Lamoreaux
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 768
Cover
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
PART I BASIS OF THE THEORY
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Properties of the quantum world: indeterminacy, interference,superposition, entanglement
Chapter 3 The origin of quantum theory in the crisis of classical physics
Chapter 4 Further steps to quantum mechanics: the old quantum mechanicsof Bohr and Sommerfeld
Chapter 5 Further steps to quantum mechanics: Louis de Broglie andthe world’s most important PhD thesis
Chapter 6 The invention of quantum mechanics—matrix mechanics
Chapter 7 Schrodinger and the development of wave mechanics
Chapter 8 Further developments of wave mechanics by Schr¨odinger
Chapter 9 Quantum statistics and the origin of wave mechanics
Chapter 10 Early attempts at interpretation of the theory
Chapter 11 The final synthesis of quantum mechanics: the “transformationtheory” and Dirac notation
Chapter 12 Dirac and Jordan commit “sin squared”: second quantizationand the beginning of quantum field theory
Chapter 13 The “completion of quantum mechanics”—the fifth SolvayConference on Physics, October 1927
Chapter 14 Von Neumann’s mathematical foundations of quantummechanics: redux
Chapter 15 Einstein and Schrodinger renew the assault on quantum mechanics
Chapter 16 Weimar culture and quantum mechanics
Chapter 17 Further development of the interpretation of quantum theory
PART II APPLICATIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS
Chapter 18 Operator techniques and the algebraic solutions of problems
Chapter 19 Spin-1/2 and two-level systems
Chapter 20 Path integrals and scattering
Chapter 21 Introduction to quantum computing (with the assistance ofEdward D. Davis)
APPENDICES
A- Classical mechanics
B- Galilean invariance of the Schrodinger equation
C- Universality of Planck’s constant
D- Conservation laws
E- Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism for classical fields
Index
