Quantum Mechanics

Rating:
Summary: An undergraduate text by a great teacher
Review: The book I am reviewing is F. Mandl's "Quantum Mechanics", from the celebrated Manchester Physics Series. These are books especially planned for undergraduates, so that they are not too long and have hints or solutions to almost all the (numerous) exercises. The author is a famous writer in science. He wrote, for instance, the first redable book on quantum electrodynamics (the "Mandl", as it was called), another volume of the Manchester Series, "Statistical Physics", one of the present favorite introductions to the same subject (with G. Shaw) and a wonderful Yellow Report from CERN on Symmetries, now unfortunately very hard to find. Mandl has the gift of anticipating doubts and of providing clear and direct answers. In a book of quantum mechanics there are traditional points where disasters frequently occur. One is the description of the continuous spectra, with the "box normalization". Mandl excells here. Other is the perturbatio! n theory of a degenerate level. Mandl's is the best treatment I've seen. As is usual in texts of this level, there is no Dirac equation. On the other hand, a chapter is devoted to Dirac's formalism, in terms of bras and kets. At the modern side, a very clear explanation of Bell's inequality, and problems connected to it, is given. To sum up, the whole text is sound and very clear. The exercise are good, and the hints most helpful. Excellent text.

Rating:
Summary: An undergraduate text by a great teacher
Review: The book I am reviewing is F. Mandl's "Quantum Mechanics", from the celebrated Manchester Physics Series. These are books especially planned for undergraduates, so that they are not too long and have hints or solutions to almost all the (numerous) exercises. The author is a famous writer in science. He wrote, for instance, the first redable book on quantum electrodynamics (the "Mandl", as it was called), another volume of the Manchester Series, "Statistical Physics", one of the present favorite introductions to the same subject (with G. Shaw) and a wonderful Yellow Report from CERN on Symmetries, now unfortunately very hard to find. Mandl has the gift of anticipating doubts and of providing clear and direct answers. In a book of quantum mechanics there are traditional points where disasters frequently occur. One is the description of the continuous spectra, with the "box normalization". Mandl excells here. Other is the perturbatio! n theory of a degenerate level. Mandl's is the best treatment I've seen. As is usual in texts of this level, there is no Dirac equation. On the other hand, a chapter is devoted to Dirac's formalism, in terms of bras and kets. At the modern side, a very clear explanation of Bell's inequality, and problems connected to it, is given. To sum up, the whole text is sound and very clear. The exercise are good, and the hints most helpful. Excellent text.