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Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell

Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell

List Price: $49.50
Your Price: $42.56
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fresh picture of subject and environment
Review: A general rule about science books states that
Comprehension*Rigor >= Background of the reader (all 2 Pi factors dropped)
where by "comprehension" you can mean both "ability to be understood" and "amplitude of included subjects". The latter has the unfortunate feature that lhs terms do not depend on reader's characteristics while the rhs one does, but, for all practical purposes it works. A book about the subject randomly chosen is likely to have such a factor far above the equality, but this one seems to be quite close.
However, that does not mean it is popular science: its ideal target are Physics students with at least a knowledge of "classical" (i.e. non relativistic) quantum mechanics and its main applications in electromagnetic fields.
I would have appreciated more material about experiments (after all, my university course stretches from 1979, when Glashow, Salam and Weinberg were awarded with the Nobel prize for their theory of electroweak interaction, and 1984, when Rubbia and van der Meer got it for the observation of intermediate vector boson), but I have to acknowledge that there was hardly any room left for such references, unless publishing a very heavy book, taking also into account the search for an equilibrium between educational issues and an updated sight.
Besides, the way environmental knowledge has been reproduced, with all notation misuse and omissions of non-significant terms or methods, represents a fresh and fashionable picture of current teaching (and learning) physics, at least about the subjects I remember (I have not studied, and I do not know, unless for popular papers, string theory, maybe present days students argue about that with habits unknown to me). I wish I had the book as a student.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good but not in depth enough
Review: After reading Peskin and Schroeder, Mandl and Shaw, Coleman's Aspects of Symmetry, and much of Kaku's QFT book I can easily say that this book surpasses these books in some respects but lags in others. The first chapter of this book is wonderful. It is the best explanation of the ideas behind QFT that I have seen. It introduces field theory, Feynman perturbation expansion, sources etc. in roughly 50 pages. After this the quality of the book drops. It seems very rushed and there are many different ideas covered in only a few paragraphs. Zee has tried to interject many different ideas, but so many topics are covered that none are covered very in depth. Unlike the other books I mentioned you will see things like the Chern-Simons action, the quantum Hall effect, and gravity but these topics are covered very superficially. The treatment he gives to almost every topic is just enough to get you interested, but not enough to give you the full picture. This book is best served as a survey of many modern topics in QFT at an introductory level. If you know the ideas in this book you should be able to pick up a more difficult text and work through it. I believe that this book would be useful as a text in a QFT class but only supplementary. If the basic class textbook was P&S and this was supported by Aspects of Symmetry and Zee's book, I think that would be a good combination. At a minimum, Zee's book should definitely be read along with Coleman's book because many of the topics compliment each other. Tough ideas from Coleman are given in simplified form in Zee, while confusing ideas in Zee are clearly explained in Coleman. I bought this book because I read the first chapter off Princeton Press' website and as I stated I think that the first chapter is the strongest in the book. Overall this book covers a large amount of topics in an introductory manner, but most of them are covered very briefly. There are also solutions to some of the more important excercises.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BRAVO ! ! !
Review: BRAVO ! ! !
It has been over fifteen years since I've last read a book on QFT. This book is extremely clear, enlightening, entertaining, at times deep and always worth the effort. I have read several small sections and it has already made quite an impression on me. I recommend this book without hesitation.

I just don't understand the two star review by someone who thinks this is one step up from popularization. First, I don't know of any books in that category that discuss and show calculations for field theory in curved spacetime, renormalization, the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, basics of Chern-Simons Theory and TQFT, etc. Second, if it's rigor you want, say non-commutative C* Algebras and QFT, why would you expect to find it "in a Nutshell?" Try, for a bit more rigor, "The Mathematical Foundations of Gauge Theories" by Marathe & Martucci or the wonderful works of John Baez. Or go to Glimm and Jaffe's "Quantum Physics: A Functional Integral Point of View" for lots of rigor but almost nothing in four dimensions. De gustibus non disputandem est - but let us not get ridiculous.

Joseph R. Dell'Aquila, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Finally! A QFT book with a wide-angle lens!

Zee has a wonderful sense of humor, starting with his refusal to give his first name anywhere in the book -- making this truly QFT from A to Zee.

After text after text of "field theory for CERN workers," this is a book that can be read by the rest of the physics community -- who may not be too interested in churning out cross sections, but are interested in all the gory details of quantum fields.

I learned QFT from Peskin & Schroder. I wish I had had this as a companion.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Quantum Field Theory for Dummies
Review: Finally, an understandable book on QFT for average folks. Prof. Zee develops the subject using Feynman's propagator approach, which to me is the most aesthetically and intuitive way to crack this otherwise impenetrable nutshell. After the first 60 pages or so you should have a pretty firm grasp on the mathematics and the underlying physical concepts. However, having armed the reader with the bare minimum of mathematical and physical tools, Zee then dives into some fairly daunting territory without providing the requisite aids. His treatment of Grassman algebra is minimal (which is too bad, because it underlies fermionic QFT), and his explanation of renormalization is altogether inadequate. Zee then ventures into more advanced areas which, in my opinion, are clearly beyond the scope of the book's "nutshell" approach (this is the primary reason why the text exceeds 500 pages). In spite of these shortcomings, however, Zee's book fully succeeds in its aim to explain a complicated topic to those of us who learned ordinary quantum mechanics without too much difficulty, but then got slammed into a wall when we turned to QFT. My recommendation to beginners would be to read this book and then get Lewis H. Ryder's QFT book to further cement your understanding of what is undoubtedly a profoundly beautiful, if difficult, subject.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Required reading for QFT
Review: From my experiences in quantum field theory: The kind that you can read, the kind that work out examples, and the kind that your professors want you to understand. The last are Jackson-esque tomes like Peskin and Schroeder that dummies like me in a QFT class will never be able to use ("dummies in a QFT class" may sound like an oxymoron, but we're not all geniuses...). The kind of texts that works out examples, like the text by Lahiri and Pal, have been invaluable to me, but I still have not always been able to understand the IDEAS contained in the mathematics.

"QFT in a Nutshell" heralds the introduction of a book on quantum field theory that you can sit down and read. My professor's lectures made much more sense as I followed along in this book, because concepts were actually EXPLAINED, not just worked out. I still recommend having all three types of texts, but I am glad that now I have three types and not just the last two.

However, it might make sense to incorporate some of the explicit problem solving in Lahiri and Pal into "QFT in a Nutshell"; while I could understand the English, the math solutions often were difficult to follow. Just a thought.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read book if you want to understand essentials in QFT
Review: I am really pleased that Zee undertook to write this book. QFT can be a hefty topic. All too often, writers of many texts know their topic well but do an inadequate job of conveying to the reader where they are leading them as well as identifying the important insights that can be gleaned. In this manner, Zee's book stands out from the crowd. He likes to explain how to reason through a problem or idea. As I started reading the text, I found many things started making a lot more sense to me.

From my perspective, Zee's book serves a dual role:
1) Its a great book for picking up lots of useful concepts and techniques.
2) Now that I have some orientation and sense of direction, I can go back to some of other texts on QFT and Superstring Theory and begin prying open some of the less accessible topics.

The technical community is in need of more books like this. I hope Zee will go on to publish additional textbooks on related topics (for both an introductory level, and separately on a more advanced level).

You should be aware that this book has three prerequisites: reasonable knowledge of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity Theory and a certain level of mathematical maturity. Without these prerequisites, you won't get very far in this book and will need to supplement it; whether having some other texts handy, or enlisting the help of a fellow colleague or professor to fill in the gaps.

All in all, QFT in a Nutshell is a wonderful find. For the money and time spent putting my nose to the grindstone to learn something new and useful, this book has truly turned out to be one of my better purchases.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Conceptual Clarity
Review: I could not imagine that one can
explain so much field theory concept in 500 pages.
I taught QFT during the fall of
2002, I regret that I did not have Professor Zee's book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ideal for people who took QFT but never truly understood it
Review: I just got a copy of the book this week and am absolutely giddy with excitement. I took QFT back in 1980 using Itzykson and Zuber. I never really did understand it well, though I got high marks for learning how to calculate stuff. I think I understand more after the first 30 pages of this book than I did after that entire semester.

I've been looking for a book like this for the last ten years. Finally, there is an author who can communicate concepts as well as Feynman.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: my favorite QFT book by far
Review: I took a QFT class which amounted to "how to evaluate Feynman diagrams efficiently" which really frustrated me from the "understanding" perspective. This text is the exact opposite approach. He builds intuition from the very beginning -- the steps from quantum mechanics to QFT are crystal clear (as others have said) and entertaining -- then the steps from fields to particles to forces are equally clear. The motivation and derivation of the Feynman rules is the best I've seen.

I haven't reached the "advanced topics" yet, but the foundational chapters have already been a huge boost to my understanding. If the book has a weakness, I'd have to say the intro to canonical quantization is too brief. The emphasis seems to be very much on the path integral approach.


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