Understanding Quantum Physics: A User's Manual, Vol. 1

Rating:
Summary: Quantum boy
Review: I think this book is one of the best introductions to Quantum Physics. Although it is a bit wordy, it is evident that the author has a great passion for the subject and does a great job of explaining all the basic terminology, concepts and mathematics behind this great theory of modern physics. The book also takes a more applied approach to the subject and enables the beginning student to much more easily see the connection between the mathematics of QM and experiment. Highly recommended as either an undergraduate textbook or as a supplement to other "standard" textbooks such as Liboff or Griffiths.

Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Text in Quantum Physics
Review: Review of Morrison's Understanding Quantum Physics, A User's Manual

As a physics teacher and a student of Quantum Mechanics for many years, I have been particularly disappointed with the dirth of good texts for beginning students. There are worthwhile texts for those who understand the basics sufficiently, but Quantum Mechanics presents special difficulties to the neophyte: duality, probablility, transforms, correspondence, wave mechanics, matrix mechanics, Fourier analysis, continua and discrete spectra, commutation, operators, observables, measurement, and much more.

Morrison covers these topics clearly and in great detail, aimed squarely at the beginner. I am always fond of teachers who follow themes, reintroducing concepts over and over to show how they support new ideas. These are teachers who use nuance that you do not notice until you read the tale a second and third time. Morrison does that. An author with complete control over the subject matter, he proposes to create for the reader a powerful, understandable tool for examining the micro world, and he succeeds admirably.

Many texts have disappointed me because I find inconsistencies, unclear definitions, examples with so little discussion supporting them that they are impossible to understand. Not so with Morrison. I have read and studied this entire book at least three times over the past 1 1/2 years. I have found no inconsistencies in the math, nothing that wasn't clear within a couple of readings. Indeed each reading brought greater clarity, since each time I understood more of the coming tale than I did when I first read it. QM requires study and insight, a pondering of the issues. Morrison offers a clear, methodical approach, rather than difficult, inconsistent prose and math. Each time I read it, I see Morrison's craft as an author and a teacher.

Examples densely populate the text, a good number of which I have seen nowhere else. Every topic benefits from them and from dozens of problems which build upon each other. If I had difficulty with a problem, I tried earlier ones, moving back through the chapters until I discovered where my understanding went faulty.

I must admit a certain admiration for Morrison's ability to create a text for beginners that can generate understanding and clarity during graduate studies. I also admire the detail with which the publisher presented the mathematical formulae: attention to super- and sub- scripts, to summation indices, to counters. I found no mistakes in the math.

Not all topics are covered. Missing are discussions on relativistic QM; 3 dim aspects (he focuses on 1-dim distributions and indicates how to move to 3D); Dirac notation (mentioned modestly); spin and angular momentum; the Hydrogen atom orbitals. I agree with him, arguably, that these can be relegated to "advanced topics". What he does cover (see list above) is done superbly well. His next book will no doubt cover these topics as thoroughly and rigorously.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Approach to QM
Review: Thank you Dr. Morrison for a wonderful text on Quantum Mechanics.

This text covers everything relevant to Quantum Mechanics. It addresses the ambiguity of many concepts. He takes a single term or concept, writes it once, and then rewrites it using several different approaches. He leaves nothing to guess.

He tells you when you have just encountered an important milestone in your reading then warns you, before going on, to reread the previous section or chapter.

He poses questions in the text that you yourself are thinking. He then clarifies those questions. He does not assume you were ever taught or fully understood such things as the "Postulate of Quantum Dynamics", or whether "Stationary states really exist."

Dr. Morrison's approach, to the sometimes complicated concepts of QM, is a work of art. He could teach this stuff to elementary school children. I anxiously await the full exploits of Vol.II and the development of the Hydrogen atom.

Please hurry Dr. Morrison!

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Approach to QM
Review: Thank you Dr. Morrison for a wonderful text on Quantum Mechanics.

This text covers everything relevant to Quantum Mechanics. It addresses the ambiguity of many concepts. He takes a single term or concept, writes it once, and then rewrites it using several different approaches. He leaves nothing to guess.

He tells you when you have just encountered an important milestone in your reading then warns you, before going on, to reread the previous section or chapter.

He poses questions in the text that you yourself are thinking. He then clarifies those questions. He does not assume you were ever taught or fully understood such things as the "Postulate of Quantum Dynamics", or whether "Stationary states really exist."

Dr. Morrison's approach, to the sometimes complicated concepts of QM, is a work of art. He could teach this stuff to elementary school children. I anxiously await the full exploits of Vol.II and the development of the Hydrogen atom.

Please hurry Dr. Morrison!

Rating:
Summary: A lot of schmooze!
Review: This book was the basis for my first junior/senior course in quantum mechanics. The biggest problem with this text is that it is so full of words and quotes and games and jokes that the student will spend more time trying to sort though the ink for the real meat of the subject than she or he would like to. Because it is original, it's worth a few bucks in late charges at the university library, but I won't feel comfortable making it the basis of my education in quantum mechanics. There is not a lot of hard physics for your buck in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of schmooze!
Review: This book was the basis for my first junior/senior course in quantum mechanics. The biggest problem with this text is that it is so full of words and quotes and games and jokes that the student will spend more time trying to sort though the ink for the real meat of the subject than she or he would like to. Because it is original, it's worth a few bucks in late charges at the university library, but I won't feel comfortable making it the basis of my education in quantum mechanics. There is not a lot of hard physics for your buck in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The best physics book I have ever read....
Review: This is definitly one of the best introductory books I have read in ANY subject. I wonder if it is a physics book or a novel! Morrison's style is exceptional - he writes in a beautiful and lyrid style that has never been matched by any of the physics professors I have read.