Classical Electrodynamics Third Edition

Book Description

A revision of the defining book covering the physics and classical mathematics necessary to understand electromagnetic fields in materials and at surfaces and interfaces. The third edition has been revised to address the changes in emphasis and applications that have occurred in the past twenty years.

Customer Reviews:

The emperor is naked.......2007-07-25

This is terrible textbook. Jackson has no idea how to present material so that you can use it to solve real world problems. He should be covered in sackcloth and ashes.
Dr Val

canon.......2007-06-09

If you are a physics graduate student, you probably will encounter this book at some point. Everyone tries to pidgeonhole it: space physicist want it to focus on plasma physics, string theorists want it to focus more on field theory, etc. When you take average focus of so many disparate groups of physicists, you get the book that has actually been written! Even for a such a specialize audience. Jackson is as general as possible. I commend him for it!

Jackson is not a pedagogical text........2007-04-13

Jackson's book is the gold standard, bar none, for *reference* textbooks on E&M. That's why you will find at least one copy in the office of every physics professor and most physics grad students in the English-speaking world. It is not and was clearly never intended to be a pedagogical device, however, so pray to your deity of choice that you have an outstanding teacher to guide you through it. You can't really call yourself a physicist unless you've slogged through it in a grad E&M class, because everybody else before you did it too. Good luck!

A Review of "Classical Electrodynamics", Jackson, J. D. , 3rd Edition.......2007-03-14

This large book (808 pages) is an excellent text for its intended purpose, which is for classroom training of graduate-level physicists in electromagnetics. The study of magnetism and its effects is a very large one, and no single book could cover the entire field. One might perhaps divide the subject into two overlapping parts, low-frequency and high-frequency. The first covers such things as motors, actuators, solenoids (solenoidal actuators), permanent magnets, and such, where the material properties are often nonlinear and the displacement vector D of Maxwell's equations is not significant. The other, high-frequency, is the realm of this book, involving radio, microwaves, light, etc. where the displacement vector must be used and where the properties are assumed to be linear. It makes extensive use of advanced mathematics such as vector calculus, Greene's functions, spherical harmonics, Bessel functions, and the Hamiltonian. The book lightly mentions such subjects as relaxation (finite-difference), finite-element methods and eddy current effects, but discusses extensively the relationship between Einstein's theory of relativity and electromagnetics ( about a third of the book). Before buying this book, it might be best to determine that its particular emphasis fits the reader's needs.

Classical Electrodynamics Nightmare!.......2007-03-04

This book is the hardest book I have ever encountered in my electrical engineering experience. I have to relearn the electrodynamics theory in CGS units and form the physicist perspective. Jackson is famous for his nearly impossible to solve problems as well as his abstract derivations throughout the book. At least I ended up with an A in the course after a semester's hard work.

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Qed Coherence in Matter
Giuliano Preparata
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9810222491

Quantum Mechanics and Its Emergent Macrophysics

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Quantum Mechanics and Its Emergent Macrophysics
Geoffrey Sewell
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691058326

Book Description

The quantum theory of macroscopic systems is a vast, ever-developing area of science that serves to relate the properties of complex physical objects to those of their constituent particles. Its essential challenge is that of finding the conceptual structures needed for the description of the various states of organization of many-particle quantum systems. In this book, Geoffrey Sewell provides a new approach to the subject, based on a "macrostatistical mechanics," which contrasts sharply with the standard microscopic treatments of many-body problems.

Sewell begins by presenting the operator algebraic framework for the theory. He then undertakes a macrostatistical treatment of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, which yields a major new characterization of a complete set of thermodynamic variables and a nonlinear generalization of the Onsager theory. The remainder of the book focuses on ordered and chaotic structures that arise in some key areas of condensed matter physics. This includes a general derivation of superconductive electrodynamics from the assumptions of off-diagonal long-range order, gauge covariance, and thermodynamic stability, which avoids the enormous complications of the microscopic treatments. Sewell also unveils a theoretical framework for phase transitions far from thermal equilibrium. Throughout, the mathematics is kept clear without sacrificing rigor.

Representing a coherent approach to the vast problem of the emergence of macroscopic phenomena from quantum mechanics, this well-written book is addressed to physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists interested in quantum theory, statistical physics, thermodynamics, and general questions of order and chaos.

Gauge Theories in Particle Physics, Volume I: From Relativistic Quantum Mechanics to QED (Graduate Student Series in Physics)

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Very clear and readable
more understandable QFT for beginners
If you are having trouble with QFT - BUY THIS BOOK!
Amazingly clear introduction to the subject

Gauge Theories in Particle Physics, Volume I: From Relativistic Quantum Mechanics to QED (Graduate Student Series in Physics)
I.J.R. Aitchison , and A.J.G. Hey
Manufacturer: Taylor & Francis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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An Introduction to the Standard Model of Particle Physics
An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Frontiers in Physics)
Lie Groups, Lie Algebras, and Some of Their Applications
A First Book of Quantum Field Theory, Second Edition
Geometry, Topology and Physics, Second Edition (Graduate Student Series in Physics)

ASIN: 0750308648

Book Description

Gauge Theories in Particle Physics, Volume 1: From Relativistic Quantum Mechanics to QED, Third Edition introduces the three gauge theories of the standard model of particle physics: quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and the electroweak theory. For each of them, the authors provide a thorough discussion of the main conceptual points, a detailed exposition of many practical calculations of physical quantities, and a comparison of these quantitative predictions with experimental results. This edition includes new introductory chapters, expanded treatment of relativistic quantum mechanics, and a self-contained introduction to quantum field dynamics as described by Feynman graphs.

Customer Reviews:

Very clear and readable.......2007-03-21

Like the 2nd edition this 2 volume set is very readable. I like it's informal style, and the wealth of background material presented, as well as the hints about when to expect further discussions of a subject in succeding chapters. By far the best Quantum Field Theory book I've come across.

more understandable QFT for beginners.......2005-09-17

The 3rd edition of that book clarified to a degree the fog left in my mind by a two-semester QFT course. The book is better suited for beginners than Peskin & Shroeder, Mandl & Show or Lahiri & Pal simply because it senses better the difficult points for beginners and tries to explain them at lower level. It focuses on the main concepts and doesn't try to `cover broad material in shortest time' or get into extreme computational technicalities totally irrelevant to beginners. The correct historical perspective of many ideas is given and the important historical papers are cited. The theory is frequently compared to the experimental results. Violin string is used as a prototype of a continuous system described by a classical field which is the first field quantized later. The book develops physical intuition showing how a scattering process can be analyzed in full QED (all fields are operators), in semiclassical approximation (all fields are operators except the EM field) or using the lowest level wavefunction approximation (all fields are treated like wave functions just like scattering in nonrelativistic QM) often getting the same result (see chapter 8). Important concepts like Feynman diagrams and Renormalization of a theory are first explored in a simple theoretical playground - a hypothetical `ABC theory' of three massive scalar fields with an interaction ABC term - and later discussed again in the case of QED with all the complications like fermions and Electromagnetic gauge field.

Topics discussed include gauge invariance principle; relativistic field equations describing free particles like Klein-Gordon and Dirac; Feynman interpretation of the negative energy solutions of Dirac eq. (no its not `antiparticle going back in time'); Dirac equation with EM field; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian densities for continuous systems; quantization of free fields like KG (real and complex scalar), Dirac and Electromagnetic field [the quantization is by postulating commutators/anticommutators, no path integrals]; Normal ordering of operators; Interaction picture for interacting fields, Time ordering of operators, Dyson expansion of the S matrix; Wick's theorem; scattering processes in QED at tree level; Ward identity; form factors for scattering from non point particle; parton model, Bjorken scaling; diagrams with loops, regularization and renormalization of ultraviolet divergences in QED.

It took me a month and a half to read the book and solve all problems (10 problems per chapter on average). The problems are exactly the ones every beginner should solve and usually revolve about filling in details from the text or proving statements in the text. Solving them is usually easy with a few exceptions and teaches you the typical computational tricks of the trade. You have to know quantum mechanics (at least have seen scattering theory) and special relativity. You have to at least have heard of Green function and contour integration in the complex plane. The book provides nice appendices about all these.

Not everything is crystal clear in that book, sometimes it took me a few days for an idea to sink in or I understood some paragraphs only after I read the whole book. Other ideas I did not understand at all. Sometimes it's hard to tell what they are trying to say although they say it several times from different angles ... The authors should work on expressing an idea in a direct succinct way once and for all instead of repeating several fuzzy versions of it. Overall that book made me understand MUCH more than a regular QFT course and I highly recommend it as a prep for such a course.

If you are having trouble with QFT - BUY THIS BOOK!.......2003-04-13

This book (2nd edition) has 15 chapters . I have just finished chapter 4 entitled QFT and I am compeled to write this review! After a year of studying of QFT informally I can report that this is the way to introduce yourself to the topic. I've been through Mandl & Shaw, Peskin & Schoeder, Ryder, Weinberg and a few others and this is heads and tails the BEST intro available. In 42 pages, Aitchison & Hey make the transistion from classical to QM and from QM to QFT as gracefully as I can conceive. For example, the transition from the discrete Lagrangian to the field Lagrangian is very explicit. One benfit of this is that the dependence of L on partial of phi wrt x is clearly motivated leading to the manifestly relativistically invariant form of L. They explicitly develop physical intuition at every step of the way - for example, this is the only book that I have found that explicitly asks the question where is QM's wavefunction in the QFT formalism? Answer - The vacuum to one-particle matrix elements of the field operators. The transistion from free fields to interacting fields is far clearer than any other treatment I've seen. I also appreciated that the problems were used to basically fill in details left out of the text. I was able to 'practice' the various kinds of manipulations that are required.

Amazingly clear introduction to the subject.......1998-08-03

This book is the best book I've seen on the subject. The qualitative description of qunatum field theory in particular are amazingly lucid for the subject. The only possible flaw in the book is that the problems at the end of each chapter are both few in number and for the most part do not challenge the student at all; for the most part they are just rote calculations.

Optical Propagation in Linear Media: Atmospheric Gases and Particles, Solid-State Components, and Water (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Series in Science & Engineering)

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Optical Propagation in Linear Media: Atmospheric Gases and Particles, Solid-State Components, and Water (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Series in Science & Engineering)
Michael E. Thomas
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195091612

Book Description

A typical optical system is composed of three basic components: a source, a detector, and a medium in which the optical energy propagates. Many textbooks cover sources and detectors, but very few cover propagation in a comprehensive way, incorporating the latest progress in theory and experiment concerning the propagating medium. This book fulfills that need. It is the first comprehensive and self-contained book on this topic. It is useful reference book for researchers, and a textbook for courses like Laser Light Propagation, Solid State Optics, and Optical Propagation in the Atmosphere.

Semiconductor Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (Springer Tracts in Modern Physics)

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Semiconductor Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (Springer Tracts in Modern Physics)
Y. Yamamoto , F. Tassone , and H. Cao
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540675205

Book Description

Recent advances in semiconductor technology have made it possible to fabricate microcavity structures in which both photon fields and electron-hole pairs (or excitons) are confined in a small volume comparable to their wavelength. The radiative properties of the electron-hole pairs and excitons are modified owing to the drastic change in the structure of the electromagnetic-field modes. This book is the first to give a comprehensive account of the theory of semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics for such systems in the weak-coupling and strong-coupling regimes. The important concepts are presented, together with relevant, recent experimental results.

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Electrodynamics of Magnetoactive Media
I.D. Vagner , B.I. Lembrikov , P. Wyder , Israel D. Vagner , Boris I. Lembrikov , and Peter Wyder
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540436944

Book Description

This book is devoted to the theory of electrodynamic phenomena in systems under an external magnetic field. The analysis is based on Maxwell's equations. We present the fundamentals of magnetostatics, quasistatic electromagnetic fields and electromagnetic wave propagation. The main part of the book describes the behaviour of a charged particle in an electromagnetic field, and the electrodynamics of plasmas, liquid crystals and superconductors. These very different subjects have an important common feature, namely the fundamental role played by the magnetic field. Plasmas, liquid crystals and superconductors can be considered as magnetoactive media, because their electromagnetic characteristics are strongly affected by an external magnetic field. The book will be useful for graduate students in physics, experimentalists, and engineers in high-tech industries.

Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism

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"Not even wrong"
Coherent, Concise, and Challenging
Successor to Feyman's Red Books
Pioneering Research
Collective Electrodynamics--Carver Mead's book

Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism
Carver A. Mead
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Causality, Electromagnetic Induction, and Gravitation: A Different Approach to the Theory of Electromagnetic and Gravitational Fields, 2nd edition
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Gravitation and Cogravitation: Developing Newton's Theory of Gravitation to its Physical and Mathematical Conclusion

ASIN: 0262632608

Book Description

In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics--collective electrodynamics--that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electrons directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.)

The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however, that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same--that electromagnetic phenomena are simple and direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views his approach as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensible manner.

The book is divided into five sections: magnetic interaction of steady currents, propagating waves, electromagnetic energy, radiation in free space, and electromagnetic interaction of atoms. In an engaging preface, Mead tells how his approach to electromagnetic theory was inspired by his interaction with Richard Feynman.

Customer Reviews:

"Not even wrong".......2006-07-23

This is an unusual book and not an easy one to review.
Perhaps the best starting place is the publisher's summary:

[BEGIN PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY (from the book's back cover)]

"In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics---collective electrodynamics---that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electron directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.)"

"The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however,that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same---that electromagnetic phenomena are direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views this as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensive manner.''

[END PUBLISHER's SUMMARY]

It was this summary that persuaded me to order, sight unseen, this small (132 pages) but relatively inexpensive book to read on vacation. I didn't expect a lot from it, but I hoped that it might furnish some new insights. I was very disappointed that I learned nothing of substance from it.

Indeed, I think that the above summary borders on false advertising. The book does not convincingly obtain classical electrodynamics from accepted quantum mechanical principles nor from experiments to which "Maxwell had no access". Its motivation is presented in such a vague and sloppy way that I regard it as yet one more of the endless accumulation of dreary papers which Pauli, in a famous remark, characterized as "not even wrong", i.e., too vague to be meaningful.

The book only sketchily describes the "experiments that tell us about the electron directly". These are experiments with superconducting coils, which reveal not the behavior of individual electrons, but behavior of a system of a large number of electrons coupled in poorly understood ways (hence the collective" in the book's title). Most of the book's development is based on just one experimental fact---that the magnetic flux of a superconducting loop is quantized, i.e., the flux can take on only values which are a constant multiple of integers. The book views such a system as a primitive system "having only one degree of freedom".

Before proceeding to sketch the book's main argument, I have to make some mathematical remarks. It is well known that classical electrodynamics can be plausibly developed starting with just one mathematical object---the four-potential A, which is a 1-form on four-dimensional Minkowski space. The electromagnetic field tensor F, a 2-form, is the differential of the potential 1-form: F = dA. It would be too difficult to give precise definitions here, but they can be found in my book *Relativistic Electrodynamics and Differential Geometry* and many other places. The 4-current J is then defined as (or, from a more physical point of view, assumed to be) the codifferential (covariant divergence) of the field tensor. This mathematical structure is equivalent to Maxwell's equations.

In summary, from any physical situation in which a 1-form
on Minkowski space appears naturally, one can plausibly recover much of the mathematical structure of classical electrodynamics. For example, if within the logical structure of thermodynamics there were a naturally occurring 1-form on Minkowski space, one might claim to "derive" electrodynamics from thermodynamics by identifying this "natural" thermodynamic 1-form with the electromagnetic potential A.

The only problem would be if the thermodynamic definition of A were somehow in physical conflict with the electrodynamic definition. But if A should be an unmeasurable quantity within thermodynamics, then this problem would not exist.

The essence of Mead's argument is that within quantum mechanics, there is a naturally occurring 1-form on three-dimensional space with the property that integrating it over a superconducting loop gives the phase change of the "wave function" of the loop, which must be a constant multiple of an integer. Also, integrating the space part of the four-potential 1-form A over a loop gives the magnetic flux threading the loop, which for a superconducting loop is observed to be a constant multiple of an integer. This suggests identifying the "phase change" 1-form with a constant multiple of the space part of A.
Later the full A is recovered by hand-waving analogies. In my opinion, the main problem with his argument is that his construction of the "phase change" 1-form is so vague, sloppy, and problematic that it is "not even wrong".

Another difficulty is that the electrodynamic potential 1-form
has special properties which may or may not be possessed by Mead's "phase change" 1-form, a point which Mead does not address. Since there seems no way to experimentally determine Mead's "phase change" 1-form independently of electromagnetic measurements, his identification of the "phase change" 1-form
with a constant multiple of the electrodynamic 1-form seems physically sterile.

I cannot point out the precise difficulties with his construction without using symbols which are unavailable here.
A more extensive review on my website gives the mathematical details of some of the problems with it.

Is there anything of interest in the book?
Well, some may find of interest an 11-page "Personal Preface" describing, among other things, the author's relationship with and impressions of Richard Feynman. Mead was an undergraduate student of Feynman and later his colleague at Caltech.

I have mixed feelings about these.
His reminiscences sound sincere, but also seem to me to have a
flavor of name-dropping. For example, he discusses a "sticking point" in his development of electrodynamics which held him up for years, and informs us that "it is resolved in this treatment in a way that Feynman would have liked". It seems presumptuous to claim to know what a great, deceased physicist would have thought about this work.

Coherent, Concise, and Challenging.......2005-06-30

For those of us who were fascinated by Feynman's presentation of the vector potential field A, this book is irresistable. Mead tries to build the foundations of electricity and magnetism anew, and does a fascinating job of it.

There is a lot of history and historiography mixed in with this short book, but I myself find that fascinating. If you're interested in how the currents of thought might have eddied, or where key suggestions were missed, or what from Einstein may have been underappreciated, you'll enjoy this side of the book.

All that said, this book is chewy, and does only a mild amount of hand-holding in walking through the math. This is NOT anybody's first book of mathematical physics - but if you have enjoyed reading books by (e.g.) Feynmann, Misner/Thorne/Wheeler, Herb Kroemer, Andy Grove, Morse/Feshbach, Francon, Ichimaru, Khinchin, Papoulis, Polya, Sapriel, or Wiener, you're part of the natural audience for this book. If you liked "The Elegant Universe" you may love this book (and find some common themes), but this book is more mathematically demanding. On the other hand this is no mere tome, and does not require more than undergraduate competence.

I would have liked to see more visualization aids - some of the concepts in this formulation lend themselves very well to a visual presentation. I'm going to be rereading this book, and I'm really looking forward to expository textbooks which may follow this line of presentation.

If you're in doubt, buy this - it's challenging, but very broad and brilliant, and is not only about electrodynamics.

Successor to Feyman's Red Books.......2004-07-06

From time to time I ask people if there's been anything better than Feyman's "Lectures in Physics," and the answer is generally no, that's about all there is...

Seems to me this beautiful book is at least the start of the current generation's canonical physics text set.

Pioneering Research.......2003-06-27

Carver Meade is a Pioneer. Like Einstein, he recognized that Maxwell's Equations (ME) are not correct because they are based on the assumption that the electron is a point particle. This myth was handed down from the Greek Democritus. Like Milo Wolff before him, Meade deduces that the electron is quantum wave structure, as proposed by Schroedinger. Wolff's book is also sold here at Amazon.com.
Meade uses the properties of a wave structure to provide new equations for the analysis of electronic engineering ciruits - very useful in the design of micro chips. He also shows how the collective behavior of waves is the cause of low-temperature behavior.

Collective Electrodynamics--Carver Mead's book.......2002-12-05

Despite his preface upbraiding physicists for their work of the past 50-75 years, the main text makes reasonable claims based upon well-founded experimental and theoretical results. The book endorses earlier work of Einstein, Feynmann, Reimann, Lorentz, Maxwell, Planck, and others while making computational and conceptual adjustments to accommodate modern experimental results.

Also in the text, Bohr and other die-hard quantum statisticians are continually under attack for their poo-pooing of possible phenomena, algorithms, and concepts behind the observed quantum behavior. Bohr and his clan, apparently, claimed that the statistics made up the whole baseball team of quantum physics--and that we should not, and could not, look further.

In refuting this micro-labotomic approach of Bohr, Dr. Mead makes reference to systems--macroscopic in size--that exhibit quantum behaviors. While he mentions lasers, masers, semiconductors, superconductors, and other systems in the text, the primary results of the book hinge upon experimental results from the field of superconductors. He points out that physics can be split into several areas:

Classical Mechanics explains un-coherent, uncharged systems such as cannon balls, planets, vehicles, etc.
Classical Electrodynamics explains un-coherent, charged systems such as conductors, currents, and their fields.
Thermodynamics explains how macroscopic statistics, such as temperature and entropy, guide the time evolution of systems.
Modern Quantum Mechanics tries to explain coherent, charged systems.

Here 'coherent' refers to quantum coherency, where many particles/atoms march to the same drum such as the photons in a laser, or the electrons in a superconductor, or any isolated one or two particles. Another description of coherency is that the states are quantum entangled; their time-evolution depends upon each other.

The thrust of Carver's book: QM applies to all matter--not just small systems or isolated particles--is well made. He brings up experimental data from superconductors to illustrate that the phenomenon of coherent quantum entanglement can, and does, occur at macroscopic scales; and that such behavior is very quantum. Thus he proves, quite convincingly, that quantum mechanics applies to all coherent systems.

He then closes by making some very important points. (1) He shows that quantum behavior of such systems can be expressed in quantum language (wave function), relativistic language (four-vectors), or electrodynamics (vector potential, scalar potential) in an equivalent fashion. This is important, as it proves that a superconductor is macroscopic, exhibits quantum behavior, and that these quantitative results agree with those found from the other approaches. (2) He makes the point that the quantum and relativistic equations show that electromagnetic phenomena consist of two parts: one traveling forward in time; the other backward in time. Feynmann and others have said this for a long time, and he shows how thermodynamics (or un-coherent behavior) forces what we see as only time-evolution in one direction in un-coherent systems. (3) He illustrates, modeling single atoms as tiny superconducting resonators, that two atoms that are coherently linked will start exchanging energy. This causes an exponential, positive-feedback loop that ends with each atom in a quantum eigenstate. Thus quantum collapse is neither discontinuous, nor instantaneous; and in fact makes a lot of sense. (4) He explains, using four-vectors, that all points on a light-cone are near each other in four space. This point--together with (2)--shows that there's no causality contradiction between relativity and quantum mechanics. For example, he explains that two entangled particles, such as photons light years apart, can affect each other immediately if one falls into an eigenstate, since the four-dimensional distance between them (R1 dot R2) is zero. Although separated in three space, they're neighbors in four space. Through these demonstrations and proofs, he successfully suggests that there is a way to further develop the 'behavior of charged, coherent systems' such that quantum mechanics and relativity will agree--but the conceptual changes he suggests are necessary and must be further developed. Also, he admits that a better, more appropriate mathematical and computational methods will be needed, since the complexity of coherent systems runs as n^2.

Pleasantly, then, the book makes elegant, defensible, mathematical and conceptual steps to resolve some nagging points of understanding. Also, the narrative gives the best introduction to electrodynamics and quantum mechanics that I've ever seen. Since the theoretical criticisms and experimental data are quite valid, his proposed resolutions are eye-opening and valuable. The methods he suggests greatly simply thinking about complicated quantum/classical problems. New approaches for future theoretical research are also suggested. Despite the dark tone in the preface, the book is positive, enlightening, and well anchored to accepted, modern experimental results and theoretical work.

Book Description

In this book the authors thoroughly discuss the optical properties of solids, with a focus on electron states and their response to electrodynamic fields. Their review of the propagation of electromagnetic fields and their interaction with condensed matter is followed by a discussion of the optical properties of metals, semiconductors, and superconductors. Theoretical concepts, measurement techniques and experimental results are covered in three interrelated sections. The volume is intended for use by graduate students and researchers in the fields of condensed matter physics, materials science, and optical engineering.

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