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Valerio Scarani

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Six Quantum Pieces: A First Course In Quantum Physics

by Valerio Scarani (Author), Lynn Chua Shi Yang Liu

8

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This book is an original first approach to quantum physics, the core of modern physics. It combines the competence of a well-known researcher in quantum information science and the freshness in style of two high school students.Quantum physics is known to be challenging for two reasons: it describes counter-intuitive phenomena and employs rather advanced mathematics. The description of "traditional" quantum phenomena (the structure of atoms and molecules, the properties of solids, the zoology of sub-atomic particles) does indeed involve the whole formalism. However, some other striking phenomena, somehow the most "typically quantum" ones, can be described using only high school mathematical skills. This approach exploits this fact, thus making it possible for a beginner to tackle mind-boggling experiments like teleportation and the violation of Bell's inequalities, and practice notions like superposition, entanglement and decoherence.

ISBN-10

9814327549
ISBN-13

978-9814327541
Publisher

Wspc
Publication date

September 16, 2010
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 0.36 x 9 inches
Print length

158 pages
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This book is an original first approach to quantum physics, the core of modern physics. It combines the competence of a well-known researcher in quantum information science and the freshness in style of two high school students.

Quantum physics is known to be challenging for two reasons: it describes counter-intuitive phenomena and employs rather advanced mathematics. The description of "traditional" quantum phenomena (the structure of atoms and molecules, the properties of solids, the zoology of sub-atomic particles) does indeed involve the whole formalism. However, some other striking phenomena, somehow the most "typically quantum" ones, can be described using only high school mathematical skills. This approach exploits this fact, thus making it possible for a beginner to tackle mind-boggling experiments like teleportation and the violation of Bell's inequalities, and practice notions like superposition, entanglement and decoherence.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wspc (September 16, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9814327549
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9814327541
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.36 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,773,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,299 in Physics (Books)
- #1,688 in Quantum Theory (Books)
- #71,010 in Unknown

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John G. Gardiner

Assumes minimal background

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2015

This book is an incredibly accessible introduction to quantum physics. Despite what some other reviewers suggest, it is totally reasonable to expect first-year undergrads or ambitious high schoolers to know basic linear algebra, the only mathematical prerequisite. If this book is too difficult then any other introduction will be as well. It's is the only way I would suggest a newbie pick up the subject. Again, the math is simple. The book is short and unintimidating. It cuts out the extraneous discussions that plague other introductions (no atomic orbitals, for instance) and gets right to what's truly quantum by using the simplest possible example, photon polarization, which is intuitive and does not require much physics background at all. I regularly recommend this book to others.

2 people found this helpful

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Oxana N Boyko

Don't come near this utter failure of a book, for you will forever dislike physics.

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2020

For a textbook that aims to be an elementary introduction to an obviously complex subject matter at the high school level, Scarani's book plainly does a horrendous job. I cannot imagine that a single (even highly motivated) student out of my high school aquaintances would successfully complete this textbook and have anything positive to say afterwards.

Scarani attempts to cover 6 incredibly dense and complicated topics in quantum physics that obviously require a high level of both mathematical and scientific sophistication. In his Foreword, he states that his intention with this book is to prove decades of upper-level physics education wrong and to explore these topics without introducing too much formalism. And yet, his attempt fails outright. Not only does the reader receive a shallow touch upon the 6 topics and hardly retain anything memorable afterwards, but even these brief expositions are so terribly convoluted and impossible to follow that reading Wikipedia articles would serve as a better guide in most sections. Some chapters, in fact, border on the incoherent as Scarani's dense writing fails to introduce key terms and concepts that lay the foundation for even more abstruse ideas. On more than one occasion, I caught myself completely lost mid-sentence due to its similarity to complete gibberish, despite my careful study of previous passages.

I cannot believe that there may be someone who is so incredibly deluded as to think they're truly bringing quantum physics to the level of high school in writing this textbook. The exercises are complete garbage with solutions that are handwavy, uneducational sketches at best and unintelligble messes that seem to exist with the sole intention of confusing the reader at their worst. They don't lend themselves well to being first exercises after encountering these topics, especially given the way that Scarani introduces them. The chapters are snippets of poorly-connected physics tissue that hardly build on one another chapter after chapter (why cover quantum cryptography immediately after spending a few pages discussing entanglement in the first "introductory" chapter when this concept only shows up 3 chapters later?). His lack of rigor is compounded by the usage of words that few typical low-level undergraduates, let alone high schoolers, have ever even heard of: if you've never encountered concepts from linear algebra, typically a sophomore level course, this book is absolute death, but that's the least of this book's issues. And I simply cannot fathom the foolish decision to include the cringe-inducing comics prior to every chapter. They feel as though they're mocking your struggles and confusion with this book while objectively, they accomplish nothing.

I understand that quantum physics is indeed a difficult topic to cover at a level that is more detailed than a popular science article. That's precisely why so many years go into training students' fundamental mathematical skills in university before they ever enroll into such a course. Keep in mind that never, literally never, has there been an undergraduate quantum physics class with such ambitious goals as to cover these 6 "quantum pieces" at a reasonable level of detail, so why would you attempt to do such a thing at the high school level? This is a book that has absolutely zero rigor as compared to frequently-used quantum physics textbooks, such as Dirac, Feynman, Shankar, or Griffiths, so it becomes pop-science-y in taste, but then at the same time hits you with a slew of useless words and symbols that Scarani hardly explains. It is most definitely NOT self-contained and you will, in all probability, spend the majority of your time researching terminology from other sources.

Now one might say that these strong sentiments are due to my weakness as a student. And I'm willing to accept that to an extent, I might not have fit into the demographic of students that Scarani had in mind. But then again, I have already taken 4 semesters of university math (including linear algebra!), participated extensively in mathematics and physics competitions with arguably a decent track record, and self-studied a quarter of Griffiths' Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (the standard textbook at CalTech and MIT for introductory quantum mechanics) prior to beginning this book. I genuinely have no clue what sort of ubermensch Scarani had in mind. If you read some of the other reviews for this textbook, I'm not alone in feeling absolutely defeated by it despite having a presumably advanced technical background. See the review by someone who had already completed an undergraduate degree in math and shared an identical feeling for this book. I'm certain that this critique against me and my review will dissipate when considering their story.

Beyond being a poor writer who imparts hardly any knowledge on the reader, beyond having produced literal garbage and sold it at a high pricetag, Scarani's greatest failure is as an educator. I don't think that at a single point in my academic life I have felt so reluctant to work on a subject as now with my newly-developed apathy towards physics. Before reading Scarani's unpalatable sewer waste of a book, I was excited to learn the necessary math and physics that undergraduates typically take prior to quantum physics. As I said above, I had even worked through several chapters of Griffiths' textbook, and though that was difficult, it was rewarding on a scale that Scarani's book cannot come close to matching specifically because of its laughable shallowness. Scarani is a truly demoralizing read. Steer clear of this if you wish to maintain any desire to study physics in the future.

If you wish to really learn quantum physics, you need a lot of math. Of course you can read some popular science treatments, such as The Elegant Universe or Something Deeply Hidden, but I'm assuming that many students reading this would like a bigger hit of physics. Most advanced high school students (say, having taken a few semesters of college calculus and additional problem-solving training from competitions), given a few brief detours for math, may fairly comfortably read the Griffiths textbook and follow along the materials from corresponding courses at MIT OCW. So if you've gotten this far in the review, please check that out instead. Or don't, just definitely don't spend a cent in support of this awful author.

One person found this helpful

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MK

Quick Review

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2012

Earlier missing review :

"I received this book with much anticipation as I had already read and enjoyed Prof. Scarani's earlier book on Quantum Physics. However, in the end, I feel that
the goal of using this book to teach neophytes basic quantum mechanics is not achieved. Specifically.

(1) The mathematical level of this book is still too advanced for high school students and most lower division undergraduate students in the US. For example, a fair
amount of background in linear algebra (inner products, basis vectors, tensor products !!) is assumed.

(2) The book is not written as clearly as Scarani's earlier book and could have used additional editing. I found myself having to re-read sections to extract the points the authors were trying to make.

(3) In my opinion there is really no way around having to learn the mathematics and plow through the standard texts (Dirac, Griffiths, Shankar, Sakurai, Feynman, Ballentine) to learn this material.

I think the book "Sneaking a Look at God's Cards" and Scarani's earlier book are much better texts for the reader looking for a feel for QM without being bogged down in mathematics.
For someone with more mathematical background who wants to avoid the standard physics textbook treatments listed above check out the following: Essential QM by Bowman, Understanding Quantum Physics by Morrison, or QM for Scientists and Engineers by Miller "

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CF

Una introducción muy interesante y amena.

Reviewed in Spain on February 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

Se lee muy fácilmente, los ejercicios de ejemplo se hacen con gusto y ilustran muy bien los principios explicados. Recomendado para los curiosos que quieran descubrir el tema de una forma alejada de la académica pero no sin menos rigor.

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