Has anyone here read this book?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patrickindallas @ May 16 2007, 10:50 PM) [snapback]443896[/snapback]</div>

Can't say that I've read that one (though from the reviews on Amazon it certainly sounds good). My favorite on the subject is probably The God Particle by Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, which, title notwithstanding, covered the history and general science pretty thoroughly, and had the added benefit of being funny. It does spend probably a quarter to a third of the book on the history of physics (most of which is non-quantum) in tracing how the current science arose.

 

My son is a physics professor at U of Rochester (NY). He studies neutrinos at Fermilab outside Chicago. If you're interested in quantum physics, I recommend their website http://www.fnal.gov[/url]
Better yet, if you're in the Chicago area, visit Fermilab itself. They have lots of educational things to see & do, even for the person who is a total physics dummy (like me!)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Grandma Judy @ May 17 2007, 08:16 AM) [snapback]444053[/snapback]</div>

Oh great idea. I am going to Chicago this weekend!

I personally liked the Quantum Mechanics book by Griffiths. It is very user friendly and simple in explanations.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum...s/dp/0131244051

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Michgal007 @ May 17 2007, 07:57 AM) [snapback]444061[/snapback]</div>

Griffiths is fine, and it's a standard intro book used in colleges, but it does require a bunch of math knowledge before you can really understand what they're talking about. In particular, I remember opening Griffiths for the first time in my Intro Quantum class and bursting out laughing at the Schrodinger equation on the first page; that can be pretty daunting.

One of the things that is more true about Quantum (than the other branches of physics) is that it really does require knowledge of some moderate-level math. For many other areas of physics (even relativity), it's possible to explain things without math and have people understand how things work in a basic way. With quantum, I've found this to be much less true.

 

I suppose if I'm going to comment here, I should actually recommend a couple things. I have two books which I think are good quantum intros and will actually tell you a bit without getting too deeply into the math. One would be Where Does the Weirdness Go?, which is one of these popularized books that tells you something about quantum without too much pain. The other, which is closer to a true intro, is Quantum Physics, A Beginner's Guide by Alastair Rae.