Customer Reviews

Quantum Physics For Dummies

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Maybe it shouldn't be a "for dummies" book -- but if you've read a few of the laymen's books on QM and are ready for something meatier, but aren't quite ready for a formal text, this is a great place to start. You'll need a basic appreciation of matrix-style math, partial derivatives, and integral calculus (say mid-level engineering math). An appreciation for basic physics is also required: energy, momentum, field potential, etc.

If you've got those basics, this is an extremely gentle introduction. Within an hour you'll understand the basics of the wave equation and bra-ket notation. But as with any math-based approach, even an informal one, the book has to be read carefully.

Without the basics outlined above, the book is a total bust. At the other extreme, anyone who's completed a college level course in QM will likely learn zip. For someone who's gained a qualitative appreciation for QM and wants to take the next somewhat rigorous step, this is THE book.

I'm self taught in most of this, so I can't say whether there are many serious errors/typos -- but I didn't see any glaring ones. There is one incredibly bizarre bit of notation in the first chapter where the author illustrates a simple state vector containing the square roots of 2, 3, 4, etc -- but uses 1/2 exponents that are almost the same size as the numbers, so it looks like 2 1/2, 3 1/2. etc., which didn't make any sense. After a bit of head scratching it clicked -- but aside from this peculiar example, I found the overall presentation to be quite readable.

The publisher could really do everyone a big favor by making "search inside" available.

If this book is for dummies ,I shudder to think what that makes me,several grades below imbecle probably. I have read other books in the Dummies series,calculus, geometry,etc,and generally understood what the author was saying,but I only made it to pg 27 before hitting a brick wall.I thought my understanding of maths would be sufficient ,but I was sadly mistaken.I was looking for a much simplified explanation,but given the nature of Quantum Physics ,my guess is such an explanation does not exist.Therefore I find it difficult to rate this book given that I understood so little of it.However I will use this review to warn that this is very definitely not a book to be judged by it's cover. Three stars

Unlike so many of these types of books which teach you how to solve specific problems, but, because they provide no explanation of what you are doing, leave you clueless when you want to understand related topics not discussed in the book, Quantum Physics for Dummies shows you not only how to solve a problem but explains what is going on.

It provides just the right balance between problem solving and explanation. When I was a student, physics consisted almost exclusively of teaching you what equation to use to solve for different types of problems without telling you why you were doing this. This book explains the concepts behind the formulae rather than just taking a fill-in-the-blank approach. I wish these things had been explained to me back in the day.

The examples and exposition have been carefully thought out to give the reader "the most bang for the buck." It also recognizes that not all readers, especially adults, have the time to read every week. By reviewing equations that the reader may have forgotten, it saves the reader a lot of time and frustration.

I would recommend this book both for adults who now regret not having taken more science, or did not have the opportunity to do so, as well as for those currently studying physics. Students who are faced with a poor teacher or textbook will find it not just an extremely useful supplement but a good deal more than that. Because the problems are explained so well, students will be able to face problems with both a better understanding and confidence.

Adult readers will not feel that they are being talked down to because the writing is clear, accessible, lucid and to the point. While entertaining, it is entertaining to put the reader at ease, not to make him or her feel that they need a light-hearted approach because the reader is out of his or her league. Rather, they will feel more like they are engaged in a discussion with that professor you wished you had had, but didn't.

Do not buy this book. I am on page page 53 and I am giving up. I am on my way to return it for a refund today. This book is full of misspelled words, typos, and the author makes many careless mistakes in his derivations of equations, such as forgetting brackets or other symbols and he makes dozens of copying errors when carrying numbers from one step to another. Many of the scientific points that he makes are wrong too. For example, he states twice that the intensity of a wave is equal to the square of its amplitude- WRONG. The intensity is _proportional_ to it, not equal. As others have already mentioned, this book is not a true beginner's book. Most of the concepts are simply defined by mathematical symbols without being properly explained first. Yes the author does mention at the beginning of the book that you should have had some advanced linear algebra and experience with Hilbert space previously, but how can you call a book "for Dummies" that requires that. Those requirements should be on the cover of the book, not on the inside so people do not buy it, then realize that they can not use it.

This is a great book for making hard concepts easy. The topic is a hard one, but Quantum Physics for Dummies makes it as easy as it can be made. There are numerous worked-out examples, and everything is discussed in detail. The book makes things clear that so many other books leave you totally in the dark about. I used it to help get my through my college course on quantum physics! If you want to learn quantum Physics, this is the book for you.

I cannot judge this book on its own merits, because, to be honest I couldn't understand or follow it. (Anyone considering the purchase of this book, please first take advantage of the "Look Inside" feature, finally available for it.)

It is obvious, after reading the introduction and the first chapter that this book would be better titled, "Quantum Physics For University Quantum Physics Students".

It is this reason why I rate this with a single star.

The quality of the book might be very good, and it might answer many questions, for a university student currently struggling with a quantum physics course -- but that I cannot judge, and that is, in my opinion, not the point.

The "Dummies series" has a history of providing information for the average person, which was what I expected when I ordered the book. I have no interest in becoming a physicist, but since we so often encounter references to facets of the topics, I wished to at least gain a basic working understanding of the ideas.

Without a doubt, to date, the best introductory resource I have been able to find on the topic has been the book, "The Quantum World" by Kenneth W. Ford. I have not yet reviewed Ford's book, because I have not yet completed it, but I already know that I will give it a very high review. Another fair book in this category is "Six Easy Pieces" by Richard P. Feynman -- which I have also not reviewed (because I have also not finished the book). The problem is that the topics are so complex that I have found that I have begun reading them up to a point where I could no longer follow, and then had to begin re-reading them from the beginning -- each time getting further and further into the book and understanding more and more until I reach another point where I can no longer follow, and need to begin again. Still, neither of these two books could reasonably be considered for the "Dummies series", but they do a far better job of it than "Quantum Physics For Dummies". [Both, the Ford and Feyman books I mentioned, can also be ordered here on Amazon.]

To be fair, in the "Foolish Assumptions" section of the introduction of the book being reviewed here, it specifically states:

"I don't assume that you have any knowledge of quantum phyics when you start to read this book. However, I do make the following assumptions:

* You're taking a college course in quantum physics, or you're interested in how math describes motion and energy on the atomic and subatomic scale.
* You have some math prowess. In particular, you know some calculus. You don't need to be a math pro, but you should know how to perform integration and deal with differential equations. Ideally, you also have some experience with Hilbert space.
* You have some physics background as well. You've had a year's worth of college-level physics (or understand all that's in Physics For Dummies) before you tackle this one."


But this "waiver" does not alter my rating. These assumptions should have made it very clear, to all parties involved, that this book, obviously, does not have the right to be considered for the "Dummies series".

Sadly, the concepts are so complex that I don't feel that I will ever find the perfect introductory resource in a mere book. In the mid-1990's, there was a considerable amount of activity in the realm of "multi-media" informational software for personal computers. The better titles offered a learning experience unrivaled by any other medium. With the combination of audio narration, to accompany the written text, along with still color graphics and video segments, the titles maximized the potential of properly conveying the information.

We can only hope that some software company, or education group, will recognize the need and market for such a work and hire Kenneth W. Ford to, first, update his book "The Quantum World", and use that as a basis for a collaboration with appropriate graphics artists to produce a multi-media series of computer software and video documentaries to present the information in a manner that is easily understood by any high-school graduate, with no prior knowledge of physics or calculus -- in "bite-sized Dummies-series style".

The Scenery of Quantum Physics

Electrons zipping around the nucleus of an atom have been observed to exhibit both wave and particle like properties. In classical physics this could and should not happen. Quantum Physics has been summoned up to sort out the full meaning, implications and ways of measuring, this conundrum. In the early investigations of this problem, it was discovered that a quantum field was required to explain how the energy levels of the electrons bound in an atom actually work. (A "quantum field" is something like the conceptual canvas upon which the energy of the atom is played out.) However, another problem immediately arose: the exact position and momentum of a particle could not both be known at the same time so that their energy levels could be computed. A lot of people chipped away at this problem, with both Einstein and Max Planck making sizeable contributions. The upshot was that the actual location of an election could never be known exactly, electrons could be "quantized" and known only probabilistically, which as it turns out, was good enough for almost all circumstances.

About this Book

I have reviewed other "for beginners intros to Quantum Physics texts," but I must say this author has broken the code for how to convey difficult concepts and difficult substance to a lay reader. It is worthwhile examining his technique before getting into the substance of the book. Apparently one of the first tricks is to separate out the complexity of the mathematics into bite sized chunks so that it can first be explained far away from the center of the substantive battle (as is the case with his "cheat sheets" with a whole slew of mathematical equations appearing on the front cover leafs.) All of the much feared scary suspects are there: The Hamiltonians, Schrodinger's Equations in 3D, Spin Operators and Commutators, etc.); but then to only add them into the substance one-by-one after the concepts and experiments have all been clearly explained, and only as the conceptual development later calls for them.

The earlier books tended to introduce (to the extent they did them at all) concepts, mathematics, and experimental results all at the same time, and left it as an exercise for the reader, to sort all the dizzying complexity out. The second trick this author uses, which is even more effective than his act of demystifying the equations by "introducing them far away from the center of action," is to provide a structured overview of the concepts (that has bite to it) without the equations: It is kind of "a scenery, then scene, overview" before jumping into the substance with all four feet -- that is to say with mathematical equations and all: and only then showing how only with the equations at hand the problems being addressed could be solved. The reader feels almost as if he too could have come up with the same results, all on his own.

And finally, and this is obviously a trick mined from none other than Einstein himself (perhaps via Steven Hawkings) is to begin the substance with bottom level foundation principles and build up the theory according to the physical imperatives those principles demand: that is to say, as a result of the context of the experiments which gave rise to the problems of the substance itself. It is here that the understandings introduced will stick to the brain providing a secure logical hinge to guide one's journey deeper and deeper into the inevitable difficulties and complexities to come. It will also serve as the conceptual glue that binds the seemingly complex, but disparate parts together: concepts, experiments, and mathematics all into one logical whole. As Hawkings noted of Einstein, (I am paraphrasing a quote from his book `A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion') "he had the uncanny knack of latching on to a fundamental truth, as a dog might latch onto a bone, following its assumptions to their logical endpoint no matter where they might lead." Such was the case with his consideration of the constancy of the speed of light, which inexorably led step-by-step to the "Special Theory of Relativity." It was similarly true for the difference between the two separate ways of measuring mass and the way he mined the apparently very subtle difference in these two measurements. They too were resolved through Einstein's dogged reasoning, persistence (more so than thorough his rather limited mathematical prowess) into the "General Theory of Relativity."

In a similar vein, rather than just "throw together" a dizzying collection of complex equations (as has been done by authors of competing volumes) and wait for the "dust to settle," that is to say, wait for reader to sort them all out - which usually means only a handful of graduate students in Physics will be able to do so -- this author takes the pain to use the "Einstein approach." To wit: to begin on the ground floor with the foundation conundrum of the "wave-particle duality. As he ascends the ladder of complexity, he effectively builds a Quantum Physics edifice. It is on the ground floor that we learn about the physical anomalies of the "Black Body Problem," the "Compton Effect," and the more famous "Split Slot Experiment." They all pointed in the same direction both experimentally and mathematically: that light is (at the same time) both a wave and a particle. Then, comes de Broglie, who generalizes this phenomenon of duality to all matter via the "matter waves" and the collapsible "Wave Function.

From this single foundation assumption and the related experiments that prove the suspicions about them to be true, the author maintains a tight correlation between assumptions, experimental results that prove them, and the mathematical complexity that explains them.

The rest is just Matrix Calculus and Operational Mechanics. Ten Stars for this author and for the "For Dummies" Series of Books.

Out of the many guides to physics I have sampled, this one has done the best job of providing me (as a non-scientist) with the information I need. It is very well-written and easy to follow, and packed with information on the foundations and current directions of the quantum physics field. It is a great math refresher, and reading it was like taking a physics class but in book form!

I especially liked the way the author demonstrated how to use Java code to solve the Schrodinger wave equation, and also gave a great introduction to quantum chemistry. I strongly recommend to readers that they embark on the exploration through quantum physics that this book offers.

I have never seen a Dummies book that was so advanced. Most of the book is equations. Literally. There is even Java code (what?). I don't know who the target audience is for this book, but it is not lay people. The book assumes a prior knowledge of calculus and college level physics - and also recommends experience with Hilbert space (what?).

Maybe, you say, quantum physics is too advanced a subject to be a Dummies book. If true, then why this book? However, this is disproven by other books for laypersons on this topic which are very readable and approachable, such as Quantum Zoo by Marcus Chown.

I'm am in no way faulting the actual content of the book. I don't know, but it gives every appearance of being a good introduction - for upper-division physics students, maybe, not for general readers.

Well, one quibble about content - as far as I could find, there is no treatment of entanglement, which is the main reason I opened the book. Isn't that a pretty important area of quantum physics?

This book seems very close to a joke. I can see the Dummies books editors sitting around on a slow day at the office, perhaps even a little drunk, and someone says, "Hey, let's do Neurosurgery for Dummies. No, wait - Quantum Physics for Dummies!" And then they go on to produce such a book. And here's the joke - the presentation is way too advanced. Ha Ha, good one. Stupid readers, the joke's on you.

Yes, quantum physics involves a lot of math, but I feel that Holzner makes the math clear. Each chapter has lots of interesting examples that illustrate its topic. I feel that his coverage really made this subject much clearer. If you're up to it, this is a great start for a very complex learning adventure.