PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson

Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by tux3 on Sunday August 20, 2023 @04:10PM (#37202534)

The cat book again! It seems everyone recommends Griffiths. I finally gave in and my copy should be arriving in a couple weeks.

I've looked through the Feynman lectures a bit, and although it's very nice for a free resource, it doesn't seem to be used very much at all in curriculums.

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Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by whimsicalism on Sunday August 20, 2023 @04:47PM (#37202800)

Feynman is not sufficient as a physics textbook.

Afaik the main games in town are Griffiths, Townsend, and Sakurai if you are a tryhard

iirc I prefer Sakurai & Townsends treatment over Griffiths but I might be misremembering

e: oh yes, i think griffiths intentionally avoids dirac notation which imo screws you later on down the line

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Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by bleepthrowaway on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:08PM (#37203809)

Griffiths absolutely uses dirac notation.

Weinberg’s excellent (but not widely used!) quantum mechanics textbook does not, and being proficient in Weinberg’s text would not hinder anyone.

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Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by whimsicalism on Sunday August 20, 2023 @08:10PM (#37204153)

I think it just focuses heavily on wave mechanics and gets to dirac rather late

i like townsend because it’s like baby sakurai

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Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by bleepthrowaway on Sunday August 20, 2023 @08:37PM (#37204297)

Chapter 3 is Dirac formalism and its used for the remaining 9 chapters.

edit: I also like Sakurai, but I actually kind of like Weinberg’s non-dirac textbook better (I’ve only read the third edition)

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Re:PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum – Scott Aaronson by 3abiton on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:09AM (#37205358)

So in terms of accessibility, Weinberg < Griffiths < Sakurai?

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