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152 of 153 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, chatty, physical. QFT education transformed!!, March 6, 2004
This review is from: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (Hardcover)
This Quantum Field Theory text stands apart from others in so many ways that it's difficult to list them all :-). A very unique QFT introductory text. One problem with learning QFT is that it is so easy to get lost in the mathematical details that the core physics concepts often get obscured. In my opinion, Tony Zee overcomes this particular problem quite successfully. He keeps algebra to a bare minimum, and tries to find the shortest route to the physics ideas. He chooses examples that illustrate concepts in the fastest possible way. The chapters are short. So refreshing! Each chapter has one or two core ideas. You can go through one in ten minutes (glossing over the math), and then you go back and do the math. Part I (first eighty or so pages) is called "Motivation and Foundation" and is a rapid introduction to QFT. It is also a summary and sweeping overview --- introducing path integrals and Feynman diagrams and making a very intuitive transition from Quantum mechanics to Field theory. The next three parts cover spin-1/2 particles (Dirac spinors), renormalization, and symmetry (breaking), standard fare for QFT texts. A sampling of condensed-matter applications is given in Parts V & VI, and then current high-energy topics are treated in parts VII & VIII. The applications make this text stand out. There is a selection of advanced current topics like the quantum hall physics, surface growth, string theory, D-branes and quantum gravity, not usually found in introductory field theory texts. Of course none of these topics can be done justice in a book at this level, but getting a taste of advanced issues is a great treat. The exposition is breezy and chatty, as the author admits was his intention. The text is never boring to read, and is at times very, very funny. Puns and jokes abound, as do anecdotes involving the inventors of QFT. Renormalization is discussed through a lively dialog between student Confusio, a female Smart Experimentalist (SE), and a senior (Egghead) theorist. Ode to Galileo! Section headings alternate between serious and hilarious --- one section is called "Wisdom of the son-in-law". The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics comes out of a conversation between a teacher and a "wise-guy" student, who happens to be Feynman. And so on and so forth. The net result is a book which is much easier, and more fun, to read than any of the other common QFT books out there. Tony Zee's skills as a popular physics writer have been used to excellent effect in writing this textbook. One more distinctive feature is that there is equal emphasis on condensed-matter and high-energy applications. Most QFT texts today, unfortunately, are so biased toward particle-physics that they tend to put off condensed-matter students. A. Zee has broken the mold! Is the treatment "over"-simplified? Maybe simplified, but not dumbed-down. The high concept-to-pain ratio certainly seems worth the simplification. Is this text only good as a supplement? Well, it is after all a "Nutshell", so maybe other texts are better for details. But as an introduction to QFT concepts, few other books match this. Wholeheartedly recommended.
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63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Required reading for QFT, January 2, 2004
This review is from: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (Hardcover)
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.
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44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A readable, and re-readable instant classic on QFT, June 28, 2005
This review is from: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (Hardcover)
I have often heard graduate students say that QFT is a course that one must really take twice to understand properly--once to pick up the math, and then once again to pick up the physics. Zee's QFT in a Nutshell may change this conventional wisdom. I took a QFT course taught out of Peskin and Schroder as an undergraduate immediately after an undergrad-level Quantum Mechanics course taught out of Griffiths. Zee's book helped bridge the gap between the two courses and proved to be a golden resource for insight beyond the standard texts. While Peskin and Schroder (and many of the other modern standards--Ryder, Weinberg, Kaku to some extent) are very meticulous mathematically, "QFT in a Nutshell" introduces the mathematical tools and is then meticulous about a strong physical understanding of the topic. Zee won't let you lose sight of the big picture and his expertise in teaching the subject really shows up in his ability to highlight commonly misunderstood topics and to elucidate them with beautiful, intuitive, and physical explanations. This is not to say, however, that Zee leaves out any of the requisite mathematics. Wick contractions and rotations, gaussian integrals, the Clifford algebra of Dirac spinors... it's all there (and often explained in unique ways that clearly delimit the physics from the math)--Zee just leaves more of the details for the reader to work out (it's only then that one realizes how one uses the calculations in more traditional texts as a crutch of sorts). In this respect, Zee's book is also somewhat unique in providing hints and solutions to selected key exercises in the back of the book--giving readers a framework to work out calculations on their own (with all the necessary tools introduced), and then check their work. Often this leads to a much better understanding of the mathematics than following a long proof in a conventional text where it's not always clear when new tricks are being used here and there to reach a solution. At an introductory level, this type of book--with it's pedagogical (and often very funny) narrative--is priceless. Whether you use it as a way to "get your feet wet" before taking a graduate level QFT course, or as a supplement to a more "calculational" text such as Peskin, as a text in its own right, or even as a reference, the book is full of fantastic insights akin to reading the Feynman lectures. I have since used "QFT in a Nutshell" as a review for the year-long course covering all of Peskin and Schroder, and have been pleasantly surprised at how Zee is able to pre-emptively answer many of the open questions that eluded me during my course. Zee's very short chapters and anecdotes make it an excellent book to read cover-to-cover. One can absorb a few sections of the book at a time as bedtime reading and be amazed at how much understanding is packed into the short expositions. For example, in chapter I.2 (unfortunately not available through the Amazon preview at the time of this review--perhaps Google print?) Zee explains the path integral formulation using a "very Zen-like" thought experiment based on the double slit experiment. In typical fashion, Zee presents the explanation in the frame of an annoying student ("Feynman") in a quantum mechanics class who asks the professor what happens when one adds more holds to the screen of the double slit experiment... and then more screens--until you have infinite screens each with infinite holes. Later on he introduces a character, Confusio, who asks all the 'naive' (but deep!) questions that a good QFT student should be thinking about. In this way, Zee is able to teach the subject while encouraging his readers to actively interpret and understand theories rather than formulae. Along the way, Zee's anecdotes also impart a pleasantly surprising amount of "culture" --humorous stories about the early days of Feynman digrams, quotes from old texts (one priceless quote from Bjorken and Drell expressing the "dangers" of the renormalization group was particularly funny), and a dash of historical motivation. The latter part of Zee's text serves as an introduction to many aspects of current research. While Zee's first four chapters present the core of a particle-oriented QFT course, the following chapters contain brief and readable introductions to more specific topics. I found this especially valuable as a way to bridge my understanding from my first QFT course to being able to pick up review articles on supersymmetry. Later on, I've found Zee an excellent resource to answer typical 'beginning grad student questions' such as: What is a soliton/instanton, how does grand unification work, what do I know about gravitons? Sure, there are only a few pages dedicated to each of these topics, but those pages provide the heuristic insight that is an invaluable guide/motivator through more technical review literature. If you want to learn the nitty gritty about solitons and instantons, then go read a book on solitons and instantons. If you want to know what the heck a soliton/instanton is and why the heck you should spend hours reading about them, and, on top of that, you're a grad student so you don't have any time to read more than a few pages right now, then Zee's a great place to get the main idea and (more importantly) place it in context. It may sound sacrosanct, but I value "QFT in a Nutshell" the same way I do the Feynman lectures. In response to some of the other comments that Zee's book doesn't treat calculations very thoroughly, this is true--but this is *not* a negative. Zee's book isn't a recipie book for Feynman diagram calculations, it's a text to teach an understanding of physics. In the same way, one could complain that the Feynman lectures were weakened by the fact that they didn't explain very nut and bolt about how to calculate problems in freshman physics. So, a nutshell: You'll want to get a copy of Zee because it's excellent (if not indispensable) when you're beginning to learn QFT. You'll want to keep Zee because his later chapters will continue to shed light on the path beyond the standard QFT course. (And you'll want to keep fishing for more jokes and anecdotes.)
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