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[Phys-L] Draft quantum mechanics text



Those who teach quantum mechanics may be interested in a very preliminary draft textbook that I've just posted at:

http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/quantum/ <http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/quantum/>

This text includes most of the material that I cover in my one-semester course at the junior-senior level. As noted in the preface, it is still far from being ready for any sort of formal publication. Here are a few features that set it apart from most existing texts:

* A story-line that begins with one-dimensional wave mechanics, but that emphasizes the wavefunctions themselves more than the differential equations that they solve.

* A heavy emphasis on numerical calculations, using Mathematica.

* Plenty of pictures that use color hues to represent complex phases.

* An attempt to make better connections between continuous systems, described by differential equations, and discrete systems (including qubits), described by matrices.

* A reasonably general treatment of composite systems and entanglement.

* An appendix that reviews much of the needed mathematics.

The text is copyrighted, but for the foreseeable future anyone may download it for personal use. If you wish to redistribute it (e.g., to a class of students), please contact me privately. It is a 216-page pdf, typeset in LaTeX, with internal (and a few external) hyperlinks, formatted to print two-sided on letter-size paper (color printing recommended). The working title is simply Notes on Quantum Mechanics.

Dan Schroeder
Physics Department
Weber State University
Ogden, UT 84408-2508
http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/
dschroeder@weber.edu