Customer Reviews

Quantum Field Theory of Many-body Systems: From the Origin of Sound to an Origin of Light and Electrons (Oxford Graduate Texts)

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The other two reviewers have both noted that the book may not be a good starting point for a beginner, and I entirely agree.

Think Weinberg's three-volume QFT, or Feynman's Lectures on Physics. These books are good, full of insights, and will teach you a lot more if you already have some basic understanding of the respective subjects. However, you will suffer if these books are used as introductory texts.

That said, I find Wen's book generally a good read, and it nicely explains several concepts that I didn't understand until now. Well, I am a field theorist in my 4th year of grad school-- not exactly a beginner. But still.

One such instance is the section on Berry phase of a spin. Granted, Wen pretty much just throw at you the concept of a coherent state, but that part I learned just all right from other places. What's important is, Wen's book explains the next step "coherent state --> Berry phase" clearly. It's the only comprehensible derivation I've seen so far. (See, for example, Fradkin's Field Theories for Condensed Matters for an **unintelligible** derivation.)

I do sometimes find Wen's narrative style annoying. But hey, it's a theoretical physics textbook, and as long as he makes sound arguments (he does), how he delivers the arguments isn't that important.

This book reflects the research interests of the author, who is a genius, and should not be considered introductory, even at the graduate level. I do not find this book useful for learning anything for the first time. However, it provides an interesting perspective on many classic topics in many-body theory. Unlike the previous reviewer, I found the grandious statements a wonderful feature since most textbooks lack any of the author's voice. Reading this book is closer to attending a lecture than any text of it's kind I've read. I get this book from the library and I wouldn't pay $100 for it especially since the author posts his lectures notes on his website and much of the later material can be obtained from PROLA.

The book contains very interesting choice of material, but the derivations are quite sloppy, the notation frequently changes without warning, and there is huge amount of typos. This is a kind of book that gives you some good insights (aka Feynmann's books), but certainly not the book from which you can seriously learn the subject.

This book is really awkward. There is some standard many body theory but no beginning student will be able to learn it from this book alone. Second of all there are some very awkward statements like "fermions ..behave like non-local excitations because fermions cannot be created alone." (p146)While his line of reasoning for a particular model is decently clear, the statement about the nonexistance of a lone fermion is ridiculous. He makes occaisional grandiose statements like " [his pet theory] provides and answer to the origin of light and fermions" (p9). I find the calculations sketchy at best --you can learn deep things but at great expense. overall i find this book to mix ridiculousness and obtuse reading with insight. I think it's a poor book because pedagogy should be paramount in a textbook.