From: "JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" <JLU@hep.anl.gov>
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 7:54:00 -0500
Hi Tim-
In response to:
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I am adopting the text by Townsend. I was strongly considering the book
by Kroemer. My greatest fear is that I do not do this subject justice.
This will be the first time ever teaching the subject at this level. When
I was a graduate student, I took courses in quantum from Aharonov as well
as other great teachers. And of course, I feel deeply in love with the
subject. The students have all had one quarter of modern physics, using
the text by Krane.
I thought I might thrown in a few current topics like quantum computing.
Any suggestions?
I would also welcome other suggestions. Have I overlooked a AJP reference
paper?
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My understanding of the basis of QM was greatly influenced by
the PHYSICS TODAY article of John Bardeen, shortly before his death. Sorry,
I'm at home and do not have the reference available here.
I also suggest a rereading of the QM parts of Feynaman's LECTURES
ON PHYSICS.
The essence of QM is coherence, which seems to lie at the heart of
nature. Coherence can manifest itself macroscopically (superconuctivity,
superfluidity), so it is incorrect to describe QM as the "physics of the
small" (I have no idea what Townsend does).
The "sum over histories" approach expresses the essence of coherence,
or, if you like, the uncertainty principle. That approach may require too
much mathematical baggage for modern undergrads, however.
The question of how the quantum world interacts with the macroscopic
world is still being argued by the experts. Your brighter students will be
cheated if they do not learn that this is not a closed question, although
the details of the arguments are probably beyond the reach of the course.
A couple of my colleagues (Zachos and collaborators) are trying to
revive interest in Wigner functions. These functions maintain the classical
description of a particle trajectory at the expense of redefining the
concept of multiplication of functions. You can check hep-th in the Los
Alamos archives (or SPIRES) for references and preprints.
The other great and wonderful resource is Dirac's book. I read it
for the first time while I was in the navy, before I went to graduate school,
so the concepts are not that difficult for one with an open mind and an
empty head.
Regards,
Jack
"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography