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- Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!linac!unixhub!roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU!sschaff
- From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
- Subject: Re: QM reading list?
- Message-ID: <C17zo5.Ayo@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU>
- Sender: news@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU
- Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
- References: <C16F4H.Ft6@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:02:29 GMT
- Lines: 35
-
- In article <C16F4H.Ft6@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jimmy -Jimbo- Wales) writes:
- |> I'm interested in learning more about QM, and (particularly) about
- |> the philosophical debates associated with interpretation of QM
- |> results (theory and empirical).
- |>
-
- |>
- |> I'm looking for books to read. Anything from popular level books
- |> that are well done, up to sophisticated books at a level consistent
- |> with the level of preparation I have listed above will do.
-
- Try posting your request on sci.physics. There's usually at least
- one thread going on over there on the interpretation of QM, and some
- (repeat, some) of the participants know something about the subject; they
- might have good references to offer.
- As for good introductions to QM for non-physicists, I've just been
- given a second-hand quote from Gell-Mann to the effect that "there are none".
- I have run into one book that might be useful, _Quantum Mechanics in
- Simple Matrix Form_, by Thomas F. Jordan (Wiley, 1986). It has the
- advantage that it doesn't require much math, and gets to things like Bell's
- inequalities (quite unusual in an intro book) without requiring you to bone
- up on, say, Hermite polynomials, or do lots of grubby, semi-real problems.
- On the other hand, he does not introduce a lot of the standard
- notation that you'd need for reading serious work on the subject. Of the
- more standard introductory textbooks that happen to be lying about in my
- immediate vicinity, you might try _Introduction to the Quantum Theory_,
- by David Park (McGraw-Hill, 1974), since he treats "general principles"
- before applications. This would also be a good question for sci.physics,
- by the way.
-
-
- --
- Steve Schaffner sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
- The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC,
- Stanford University, or the DOE.
-