Quantum mechanics and path integrals
"From astrophysics to condensed matter theory, nearly all of modern physics employs the path integral technique. In this presentation, the developer of path integrals and one of the best-known scientists of all time, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman, presents unique insights into this method and its applications. Avoiding dense, complicated descriptions, Feynman articulates his celebrated theory in a clear, concise manner, maintaining a perfect balance between mathematics and physics. This emended edition of the original 1965 publication corrects hundreds of typographical errors and recasts many equations for clearer comprehension. It retains the original's verve and spirit, and it is approved and endorsed by the Feynman family. The opening chapters explore the fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics and introduce path integrals. Subsequent chapters cover more advanced topics, including the perturbation method, quantum electrodynamics, and the relation of path integrals to statistical mechanics. In addition to its merit as a text for graduate courses in physics, this volume serves as an excellent resource for professionals."--Page 4 of cover.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
7mentions
7people
2011–2023years
43% recommend57% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I broke up my list into cultural (that is, about the people, history, etc), popular (that is, not aimed at a student or an expert), and texts.
CULTURAL
Einstein - Essays in Humanism
Frayn - Copenhagen
Feynman - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Feynman - What Do You Care What Other People Think?
de Grasse Tyson - Death by Black Hole
Hoffman - The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Kaiser - Drawing Theories Apart
Kaiser - How the Hippied Saved Physics
Macaulay - The Way Things Work
Paulos - Innumeracy
Sagan - Cosmos
Sagan - Broca's Brain
Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World
Salam - Science in the Third World
Seife - Zero
Weisskopf - The Joy of Insight
POPULAR
Deutsch - The Beginning of Infinity (especially his explanation about fungibility in quantum mechanics)
Feynman - The Meaning of It All
Feynman - Lectures on Physics
Feynman and Weinberg - Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics
Galison - Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps
Gamow - One, Two, Three... Infinity
Hadamard - Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field
Hawking - A Brief History of Time
Hofstadter - Gödel Escher Bach
Heisenberg - Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
Polya - How to Solve It
Schrödinger - What is Life?
Susskind - The Theoretical Minimum
Susskind - Quantum Mechanics
Wallace - Everything And More
Weinberg - The First Three Minutes
Wiener - God & Golem, Inc.
TEXTS
Aaronson - Quantum Computing with Democritus (but I don't have a version with me in the acknowledgements https://books.google.com/books?id=jRGfhSoFx0oC&lpg=PR31&ots=... )
Abelson and Sussman - SICP
Abrikosov, Gorkov, and Dzyaloshinski - Methods of Quantum Field Theory in Statistical Physics
Cohen-Tannoudji - Quantum Mechanics (1+2)
Dirac - Lectures on Quantum Mechanics
Eddington - Space, Time, and Gravitation
Feynman - Feynman's Thesis
Feynman and Hibbs - Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals
Fermi - Thermodynamics
Gattringer & Lang - Quantum Chromodynamics on the Lattice
Goldstein - Classical Mechanics (the old version, NOT with Poole and Safko)
Griffiths - Introduction to Electrodynamics
Griffiths - Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
Jackson - Classical Electrodynamics (2nd edition---the last one entirely in CGS---is preferable)
Kleppner and Kolenkow - An Introduction to Mechanics
Landau and Lifshitz - any book in this series
Nielsen and Chuang - Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
Pauli - Selected Topics in Field Quantization
Peskin & Schroeder - An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory
Purcell - Electricity and Magnetism
Ryden - Introduction to Cosmology
Sakurai - Modern Quantum Mechanics (up to chapter 5, after which Sakurai dies and the editors put his notes together)
Sussman and Wisdom - Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Sipser - Introduction to the Theory of Computation
Thorne - Black Holes & Time Warps
Thouless - The Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Systems
Weinberg - The Quantum Theory of Fields I, II, and III
Zee - Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell
- Feynman's "Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals" is about $18 on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Path-Integrals-Emend...
That is a serious graduate level book - written in his own style.
- I object to the site's notion that there is a "best" intro book in many areas, but I'd like to see listed on the site:
Griffiths' _Introduction to Quantum Mechanics_ is quite commonly used, even though it's a bit calculation-heavy. Beyond that or for more theory, perhaps Ballentine, or Dirac's original monograph, although neither is a very common text (if that's what someone's looking for, then Shankar [mid-level-ish], Cohen-Tannoudji, or Sakurai); Ballentine because it's new (relatively... 1998), and Dirac because it's old and it's what a lot of the mid-to-late 20th-century physics giants started from. Feynman's Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals is also a no-brainer because it's been republished and it's now a $12 Dover edition.
- Feynman wrote at least one book aimed at the graduate level, “Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals”: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Path-Integrals-Emen...
Haven’t really read it so don’t know if its lucidity matches his undergraduate series.
- I'm actually not sure, off the top of my head, but I think it's from his book "Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals"; he also used it in lectures IIRC.
- Absolutely amazing, changed the way I look at the society, will re-read:
- George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Loved:
- Alastair Reynolds, House of Suns
- Andy Weir, The Martian
- Neal Stephenson, Seveneves
- Greg Egan, Teranesia
Liked:
- Arthur C. Clarke, 3001: The Final Odyssey
- Arthur C. Clarke, 2061: Odyssey Three
- Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Laws
- Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- Jonathan Slack, Stem Cells: A Very Short Introduction
- John Scalzi, Fuzzy Nation (bought the audiobook for Wil Wheaton's narration)
- Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center
- Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space
- David C. Cassidy, Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb
Found full of BS, did not finish:
- Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power
Textbooks:
- order of 10^3 pages of Open University textbooks
- Klauber, Student Friendly Quantum Field Theory
- Feynman & Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals
- Wald, General Relativity (5 chapters)
- Peskin & Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (5 chapters)
Not as bad as I felt before making the list, but underwhelming in terms of quantity. I intend to read a whole lot more in 2016.
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Feynman's Thesis
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Lectures on quantum mechanics
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An introduction to quantum field theory
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Field Quantization
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Modern quantum mechanics
7 recommend · 11
Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell
5 recommend · 9
