{"id":980,"date":"2006-09-28T02:48:38","date_gmt":"2006-09-28T07:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2006\/09\/28\/quantum-mechanics-made-easy\/"},"modified":"2006-09-28T02:48:38","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T07:48:38","slug":"quantum-mechanics-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/28\/quantum-mechanics-made-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum Mechanics Made Easy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently asked to recommend a good popular-level book on quantum mechanics. I don’t think I know of any, at least not first hand. We had a whole thread on the Greatest Popular Science Book<\/a>, filled with good suggestions, but none specifically about quantum mechanics. A quick glance through amazon.com reveals plenty of books on particle physics, or even specific notions like quantum computing, but not one book that I could recommend in good conscience to someone who just wants to know what quantum mechanics is all about. It is the greatest intellectual achievement of the twentieth century, after all.<\/p>\n

There are some books that either come close, or might very well be perfect but I’m not familiar with them. In the latter category we have The Quantum World<\/a> by Ken Ford, and David Lindley’s Where Does the Weirdness Go?<\/a> These might be great, I just haven’t read them. I’m sure that the Mr. Tompkins books<\/a> by George Gamow are good, since I love One, Two, Three… Infinity<\/a> (and Gamow was a genius), but I haven’t actually read them. Feynman’s QED<\/a> is another classic, but focuses more on quantum electrodynamics (duh) than on QM more generally. David Deutsch’s The Fabric of Reality<\/a> is a fantastic book, especially if you are curious about the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics; but I’m not sure if it’s the best first introduction (I haven’t looked at it closely in years). And David Albert’s Quantum Mechanics and Experience<\/a> is great for a careful philosophical account of what QM is all about, but again maybe not the best first exposure.<\/p>\n

Any suggestions? Not for a good book that is related to quantum mechanics or perhaps mentions it in a chapter or two, but for something whose major goal is to provide a clear account of QM. Surely there is something?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently asked to recommend a good popular-level book on quantum mechanics. I don’t think I know of any, at least not first hand. We had a whole thread on the Greatest Popular Science Book, filled with good suggestions, but none specifically about quantum mechanics. A quick glance through amazon.com reveals plenty of books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}