Visual Quantum Mechanics

"Visual Quantum Mechanics" uses the computer-generated animations found on the accompanying material on Springer Extras to introduce, motivate, and illustrate the concepts explained in the book. While there are other books on the market that use Mathematica or Maple to teach quantum mechanics, this book differs in that the text describes the mathematical and physical ideas of quantum mechanics in the conventional manner. There is no special emphasis on computational physics or requirement that the reader know a symbolic computation package. Despite the presentation of rather advanced topics, the book requires only calculus, making complicated results more comprehensible via visualization. The material on Springer Extras provides easy access to more than 300 digital movies, animated illustrations, and interactive pictures. This book along with its extra online materials forms a complete introductory course on spinless particles in one and two dimensions.

Visual Quantum Mechanics is a systematic effort to investigate and to teach quantum mechanics with the aid of computer-generated animations. Although it is self-contained, this book is part of a two-volume set on Visual Quantum Mechanics. The first book appeared in 2000, and earned the European Academic Software Award in 2001 for oustanding innovation in its field. While topics in book one mainly concerned quantum mechanics in one- and two-dimensions, book two sets out to present three-dimensional systems, the hydrogen atom, particles with spin, and relativistic particles. Together the two volumes constitute a complete course in quantum mechanics that places an emphasis on ideas and concepts, with a fair to moderate amount of mathematical rigor.

Quantum mechanics is an imperative academic achievement of the 20th century. It is one of the more complicated fields in physics that has exaggerated our understanding of nano-meter length scale systems vital for chemistry, materials, optics, and electronics. Quantum mechanics has played an important role in photonics, quantum electronics, and micro-electronics. But many more emerging technologies require the understanding of quantum mechanics; and hence, it is important that scientists and engineers understand quantum mechanics better. In the strange world of quantum mechanics the application of visualization techniques is largely pleasing, for it allows us to portray phenomena that cannot be seen by any other means. Visual Quantum Mechanics relies a great deal on visualization as a tool for mediating details knowledge. Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics is intended to explain the basic concepts and phenomena of quantum mechanics by means of visualisation. With an introduction to quantum information theory, this book integrates selected topics from atomic physics - spherical symmetry, the hydrogen atom, and particles with spin. There have been tremendous strides in the field of quantum information, this book introduces relativistic quantum theory, emphasizing its important applications in condensed matter physics. It explores relativistic quantum mechanics and the strange behavior of Dirac equation solutions. The book places an emphasis on ideas and concepts, with a fair to moderate amount of mathematical thoroughness. This book will serve as valuable guide to instruct quantum mechanics to graduate students, engineers, as well as for researchers and scientists.

Quantum Theory is the most revolutionary discovery in physics since Newton. This book gives a lucid, exciting, and accessible account of the surprising and counterintuitive ideas that shape our understanding of the sub-atomic world. It does not disguise the problems of interpretation that still remain unsettled 75 years after the initial discoveries. The main text makes no use of equations, but there is a Mathematical Appendix for those desiring stronger fare. Uncertainty, probabilistic physics, complementarity, the problematic character of measurement, and decoherence are among the many topics discussed. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

An enjoyable, comic-style book on the most successful set of ideas ever devised by human beings.

In learning quantum theory, intuitions developed for the classical world fail, and the equations to be solved are sufficiently complex that they require a computer except for the simplest situations. This book represents an attempt to jump the hurdle to an intuitive understanding of wave mechanics by using illustrations to present the time evolution and parameter dependence of wave functions in a wide variety of situations. Most of the illustrations are computer-generated solutions of the Schrödinger equation for one- and three-dimensional systems, with the situations discussed ranging from the simple particle in a box through resonant scattering in one dimension to the hydrogen atom and Regge classification of resonant scattering. Thoroughly revised and expanded to include a discussion of spin and magnetic resonance.