Book Description
Why is the future so different from the past? Why does the past affect the future and not the other way around? What does quantum mechanics really tell us about the world? In this important and accessible book, Huw Price throws fascinating new light on some of the great mysteries of modern physics, and connects them in a wholly original way. Price begins with the mystery of the arrow of time. Why, for example, does disorder always increase, as required by the second law of thermodynamics? Price shows that, for over a century, most physicists have thought about these problems the wrong way. Misled by the human perspective from within time, which distorts and exaggerates the differences between past and future, they have fallen victim to what Price calls the "double standard fallacy": proposed explanations of the difference between the past and the future turn out to rely on a difference which has been slipped in at the beginning, when the physicists themselves treat the past and future in different ways. To avoid this fallacy, Price argues, we need to overcome our natural tendency to think about the past and the future differently. We need to imagine a point outside time -- an Archimedean "view from nowhen" -- from which to observe time in an unbiased way. Offering a lively criticism of many major modern physicists, including Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking, Price shows that this fallacy remains common in physics today -- for example, when contemporary cosmologists theorize about the eventual fate of the universe. The "big bang" theory normally assumes that the beginning and end of the universe will be very different. But if we are to avoid the double standard fallacy, we need to consider time symmetrically, and take seriously the possibility that the arrow of time may reverse when the universe recollapses into a "big crunch." Price then turns to the greatest mystery of modern physics, the meaning of quantum theory. He argues that in missing the Archimedean viewpoint, modern physics has missed a radical and attractive solution to many of the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics. Many consequences of quantum theory appear counterintuitive, such as Schrodinger's Cat, whose condition seems undetermined until observed, and Bell's Theorem, which suggests a spooky "nonlocality," where events happening simultaneously in different places seem to affect each other directly. Price shows that these paradoxes can be avoided by allowing that at the quantum level the future does, indeed, affect the past. This demystifies nonlocality, and supports Einstein's unpopular intuition that quantum theory describes an objective world, existing independently of human observers: the Cat is alive or dead, even when nobody looks. So interpreted, Price argues, quantum mechanics is simply the kind of theory we ought to have expected in microphysics -- from the symmetric standpoint. Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point presents an innovative and controversial view of time and contemporary physics. In this exciting book, Price urges physicists, philosophers, and anyone who has ever pondered the mysteries of time to look at the world from the fresh perspective of Archimedes' Point and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, the universe around us, and our own place in time.
Customer Reviews:
What if?.......2007-05-15
"What if" is perhaps the most significant of all scientific questions because the speculation it causes can lead to remarkable insights.
Likewise, "what if" can also be the inspiration for great fiction as here where the author takes us on many a wild goose chase. While the goose chases aren't necessarily a waste of time, readers should be aware of them nonetheless.
First things first: to understand the physical basis for the arrow of time, we need to understand the basis of reality in which the arrow of time is housed. As currently understood, reality is a confluence of four physical forces:
1) Gravity -- exerted at the macroscopic level and greater consistent with the increasing size of the object in question;
2) Electromagnatism -- exerted macroscopically, it concerns the relationship between electricity and magnatism;
3) The srong nuclear force -- exerted microscopically at the subatomic level, it concerns the relationship between the constituent particles of the nucleus;
SO FAR ALL THE FORCES DESCRIBED ARE TIME SYMMETRICAL, IN OTHER WORDS, THEY OPERATE THE SAME WAY WHETHER ONE IS SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND THE NORMAL SEQUENTIAL PASSAGE OF TIME -- SO CALLED RETARDED TIME -- OR REVERSED TIME SO CALLED ADVANCED TIME.
4) The fourth currently understood fundamental force of nature -- the weak nuclear force -- which also operates microscopically at the subatomic level but relates to proton decay. Since 1957, we have been aware that this force is time asymmetric in that so called K particle decay (so called because the decay pattern in a bubble chamber resembles the letter K) operates in a fashion consistent with retarded time.
While one might think that a fundamental force of nature showing a selective prejudice for the type of time that we physically observe might merit some serious reflection, Price's response is to simply disregard the matter as being physically insignificant because the interactions happen on such a minute scale (viz. the subatomic realm).
In other words, by Price's reasoning the fact that after the Big Bang, matter only outnumbered antimatter by a measure of one billion and one particles to one billion would enable him to say that we live in an antimatter universe because the enumerated differences between the number of particles was so small.
While his discussion of quantum entanglement is fascinating, his insights invariably serve as yet another wild goose chase. Disdained by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance" quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that exists wherein two particles become entangled with a similar subatomic signature. Amazingly, research has shown that regardless of the seeming physical distance between the particles, a change in the signature to one of them can cause a similtaneous change in the signature of the other.
While fascinating, follow up research has failed to show that any useful information can be communicated through this immediate process and therefore -- though interesting -- it doesn't defeat Einsteinian causality.
Indeed, properly understood, it best inspires us to better understand what locality really is when we discuss the quantum level...a discussion not significantly fostered by Price's speculations.
Probabaly a better -- though harder -- read on this topic is Deiter Zeh's Physical Basis for the Direction of Time.
Groundbreaking Evidence for Bicausality.......2006-09-06
TIME'S ARROW is a remarkably well-conceived exploration of the matter of bicausality. Author Huw Price applies a philosopher's logical approach to the physics of time, as he builds such a solid case for reverse time causality that he is influencing many of today's top physicists with his lucid exploration of the subject. TIME'S ARROW methodically presents information about time in a manner that will delight mathematicians, philosophers and physicists alike, in a book that is best read sequentially from beginning to end, in order to ensure full comprehension. This book is obligatory reading for anyone fascinated by time, or who is intrigued to discover what inspired Stephen Hawking in 2006 to write a physics paper on the subject of top-down cosmology... with the notion that the present is affecting the past.
On Price's "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point".......2003-12-20
On page 13 of "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point", Huw Price writes:
".... If time flowed - then as with any flow - it would only make sense to assign that flow a direction with respect to a CHOICE (my emphasis) as to what is to count as the positive direction of time. .... The problem is that until we have such an objective basis we don't have an objective sense in which time is flowing one way rather than the other. In other words, not only does it not seem to make sense to speak of an objective rate of flow of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective rate of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective direction of time."
There are a number of ways that the world we inhabit seems asymmetric in time. Price believes that these perceptions of asymmetry are due to way we see reality, and less how reality actually is. He reminds the reader of how humanity has struggled before with anthropocentrism. Seeing the second law of thermodynamics as an EXPLANATION of time's arrow is just another anthropocentrism.
On page 17, Price writes:
".... The leading candidate for the position (the master arrow) has been the so-called arrow of thermodynamics. This is the asymmetry embodied in the second law of thermodynamics, which says roughly that the entropy of an isolated physical system never decreases.... There is nothing to stop us taking the positive axis to lie in the opposite direction, however, in which case the second law would need to be started as the principle that entropy of an isolated system never increases.... It is not an objective matter whether the gradients really go up or down, for this simply depends on an arbitrary choice of temporal orientation."
On page 20, Price writes:
"... We unwittingly project onto the world some of the idiosyncrasies of our own makeup, seeing the world in the colors of the in-built glass through which we view it. But the distinction between these sources is not always a sharp one, because our constitution is adapted to the peculiarities of our region.... It challenges the image physics holds of itself as an objective enterprise, an enterprise concerned with not with how things seem but with how they actually are. It is always painful for an academic enterprise to have to acknowledge that it might not have been living up to its own professed standards!"
On page 39, Price writes:
"... It seems to me that the problem of explaining why entropy increases has been vastly overrated. The statistical considerations suggest that a future in which entropy reaches its maximum is not in need of explanation; and yet that future, taken together with the low-entropy past, accounts for the general gradient... The puzzle is not about how the universe reaches a state of high entropy, but about how it comes to be starting from a low one. It is not about what appears in our time sense to be the destination of the greater journey on which matter is engaged, but about the point from which - again in our time sense - that journey seems to start."
What Price is describing above is what has been referred to as the ready-state paradox (see Chapter 6 of David Albert's book "Time and Chance"). And Price is right in pointing out that many of our "explanations" seems to fall to our anthropocentrism, given that we start out by assuming what it is that we seek to prove by introducing a time asymmetric ASSUMPTION.
Our low entropy birth at the big bang is a boundary condition, and one does not use statistics and determinism to explain such a boundary condition. Boundary conditions are more generally brute force realizations that are beyond explanation. So if you think that the second law of thermodynamics can explain cosmic evolution, and perhaps even the evolution of life, then think again. Or you may go on a meaningless journey to find the first ready-state.
It is quite plausibly that the early boundary conditions are determined by the present, given that time flowing backward is as plausible as time flowing forward. This brings up the possibility of backward causation, something that Price writes much on. But boundary conditions relate to collective properties, something going against the trend of reductionism. And so backward causation may better apply from the whole to its parts, which mirrors reductionism as forward causation generally goes from parts to whole.
Price writes much on Gold's big bang and big crunch model of the universe, and he writes on alternative views too. Having navigated safely from the time-flow anthropocentrism, Price seems to have gotten himself snagged on a second anthropocentrism that we are isolated from everything else. It is true we may see ourselves as all knowing creatures that are competing for our survival in a lifeless pool of chaos we call our universe. But there is no objective basis for this belief (see Thomas Nagel's "The View from Nowhere"). It is just a possible that we are the forgetful universe reflecting hopelessly into the many egocentric bodies that are said to be all knowing. Are we the inside system or the outside system? The question is symmetrical, and cannot be answered. Then why do we answer it by projecting a Gold's universe onto reality by demanding a separate big crunch future that is just as likely as our big bang past?
A two aspect view of reality does not carry this unwanted anthropocentrism. It is that reality has an all knowing aspect that is perceived to be following the thermodynamic arrow, and the SAME reality holds a sublime shadow aspect where time is reversed from the present. In the sublime aspect the many celebrate as one, whereas in the forward aspect the one fragments into many.
The zone where the two aspects connect is the inexpressible core, where symmetries are broken and manifestation unfolds. It is the core where choices are made, and where creative tensions are released. I believe this two aspect model of the universe provides that best model that answers Price's concerns, and yet it does not demand that the future is locked into a big crunch as the evidence now suggests.
This two-aspect capacity to one reality is consistent with panpsychism, but Price does not mention this either. I mention it in my book, "Trinity":
Trinity: The Scientific Basis of Vitalism and Transcendentalism
OK but not the best.........2003-06-13
The author seems to go out-of-his-way to make this tome more obtuse and forbidding than it needs to be in order to present his theories.
The book is a decent supplement to other books on space/time theory but is indeed a very tedious read, and is more for the serious student than the casual reader who merely enjoys sampling divergent views on cosmologic concepts.
I certainly do not agree with the author on a number of points, but the publication is worth your while if you have the patience to slog through it, and it surely does afford some new perspective on the subject.
Philosopher sets the Physicists Straight on Time.......2001-08-24
In this book, Huw Price uses his advantage as a philosopher to show physicists where they're going all wrong on the big "what is time?" issue. I'm teasing, but while making some excellent points, Price does sound a little condescending sometimes. I wondered, while I read, if a physicist would find it merely amusing, or would be growling a bit. This book requires concentration just because he lays out intricate step-by-step explanations and arguments. Because the arguments are built logically, you can't afford to nap. He does indicate several times the chapters that could be skipped without losing his general points. The gist of his argument is this: We exist inside the system (that is, within the space-time continuum),we are deceived by that position into wrong conclusions. The solution he advocates is "Archimedes'point," that is, we should hypothesize a position outside the system,the "view from nowhere," and from there will come up with more accurate explanations of what's going on, in his opinion, that time really is non-directional. He makes some excellent points along the way, and certainly just the exercise of working through his arguments is good for the ol' brain, but some of his arguments and conclusions are invalid. The chief problem I see is; this time-space system has produced directional time perceiving agents like us. (It has produced really cumbersome directional arguments like his!) While our perspective is limited, I don't believe that it can be dismissed. It is a very big deal that beings like us exist in this universe. We can't pretend that the universe exists merely of little bits of matter knocking around. Theoretical physics does drift near the edge of the religious question, and I would have expected a philosopher to at least acknowledge that, while the "God question" is not subject to analysis, physics does at times seem to be working overtime simply to avoid a "prime mover."
Average customer rating:
- Great for EE or MSE students
- Singh's Quantum Mechanics
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Quantum Mechanics - Fundamentals and Applications to Technology
Jasprit Singh
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
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ASIN: 0471157589 |
Book Description
Explore the relationship between quantum mechanics and information-age applications
This volume takes an altogether unique approach to quantum mechanics. Providing an in-depth exposition of quantum mechanics fundamentals, it shows how these concepts are applied to most of today's information technologies, whether they are electronic devices or materials. No other text makes this critical, essential leap from theory to real-world applications.
The book's lively discussion of the mathematics involved fits right in with contemporary multidisciplinary trends in education: Once the basic formulation has been derived in a given chapter, the connection to important technological problems is summarily described. The many helpful features include
* Twenty-eight application-oriented sections that focus on lasers, transistors, magnetic memories, superconductors, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and other important technology-driving materials and devices
* One hundred solved examples, with an emphasis on numerical results and the connection between the physics and its applications
* End-of-chapter problems that ground the student in both fundamental and applied concepts
* Numerous figures and tables to clarify the various topics and provide a global view of the problems under discussion
* Over two hundred illustrations to highlight problems and text
A book for the information age, Quantum Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications to Technology promises to become a standard in departments of electrical engineering, applied physics, and materials science, as well as physics. It is an excellent text for senior undergraduate and graduate students, and a helpful reference for practicing scientists, engineers, and chemists in the semiconductor and electronic industries.
Customer Reviews:
Great for EE or MSE students.......2006-02-06
This book is easy to read. It is written by a professor in the EE Department at the University of Michigan. There are some technical applications of Quantum Mechanics. I strongly recommend to engineering students who want to really understand solid state physics and quantum optics. This book is a good introduction.
Singh's Quantum Mechanics.......1997-11-18
This volume has indeed taken a very unique approach to quantum mechanics, and I liked it very much. However, a few things may need to be improved: 1) I have noted that a significant portion of this volume is clearly taken directly from the excellent Q.M. book of Schiff. It would be nice if the author could give a little bit more of his own explanations and insights to make the volume even more original and useful. 2) I felt that too little emphasis was given to the matrix approach to Q.M., making some materials difficult to follow when the matrix formulation is invoked. 3) The application sections really linked well Q.M. to real-life problems. Being a devices physicist myself, the topics of these application examples suited my taste well. However, some example details were simply too brief, turning them into a source of confusion rather than clarification (e.g. "Excitons in Semiconductors." More words should be said about the "Central cell nature..."). - S.C. Ph.D.
Average customer rating:
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Quantum Computation and Information: From Theory to Experiment (Topics in Applied Physics)
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ASIN: 3540331328 |
Book Description
The use of visualization techniques greatly enhances the understanding of quantum mechanics as it allows us to depict phenomena that cannot be seen by any other means. "Visual Quantum Mechanics" uses the computer generated animations found on the accompanying CD-ROM to introduce, motivate, and illustrate the concepts explained in the book. For example, by watching QuickTime movies of the solutions of Schroedinger's equation, students will be able to develop a feeling for the behavior of quantum mechanical systems that cannot be gained by conventional means. While there are other books on the market that use Mathematica and Maple to teach quantum mechanics, this book differs in that the text describes the mathematical and physical ideas of quantum mechanics in the conventional manner, with no special emphasis on computational physics or the requirement that the reader know a symbolic computation package or Mathematica. In this book, instead, the computer is used to provide easy access to a large collection of animated illustrations, interactive pictures, and lots of supplementary materials. "Visual Quantum Mechanics" takes a mathematical rather than a physical approach to quantum mechanics, and includes results more typical in more advanced books but which are more comprehensible via visualization. Despite the presentations of advanced results, the book requires only calculus, and the book will fill the gap between classical quantum mechanics texts and mathematically advanced books. The book will have a home page at the author's institution (http://www.kfunigraz.ac.at/imawww/vqm/) which will include supplementary material, exercises and solutions, additional animations, and links to other sites with quantum mechanical visualization. This book along with its accompanying CD-ROM, which contains over 300 digital movies, form a complete introductory course on spinless particles in one and two dimensions. There is a second book in development which will cover such topics as spherical symmetry in three dimensions, the hydrogen atom, scattering theory and resonances, periodic potentials, particles with spin, an relativistic problems (the Dirac equation).
Customer Reviews:
Highly recommended!.......2003-06-18
This is the best quantum mechanics book I know! It explains quantum mechanics in a very understandable way (well, at least for a physics student). The explanations are just better than elsewhere, and its easier to follow the mathematical derivations. There are no unfair remarks like 'it is easy to see that..', etc. Now I can understand quantum mechanics much better. The movies are just great. The CD-ROM alone is worth the price (unfortunately it works only for Windows and Macintosh, not for Linux). In particular, I liked the section about one-dimensional scattering theory. Here the movies and the text fit together in an optimal way. If you can only afford one book about quantum mechanics, buy this one. Unfortunately, this book is only the first part of the story. The web site tells me that the next book will describe the hydrogen atom, the Dirac equation, and quantum information. I am growing impatient. What am I going to do until the second book appears?
it's not that complicated.......2001-08-24
This is a great combination: Many diagrams, animations and so on on the CD-ROM, which are not just to look at, but you can modify parameters and interact with some of them, which is great for understanding and the book with the theoretical background to everything you can see an the CD-ROM and more. You should be fimilar with higher mathematics (complex numbers and stuff) if you really want to understand the complicated-looking mathematical background, but the CD-ROM shows that the core of the whole Quantum-Mechanic-Thing seems to be very natural (what a surprise). This book is an excellent approach to this topic - take a glance. ... and for those, who are not interested in QM-theory: the animations are very colorful and fine to look at ;)
Book Description
Quantum mechanics is widely recognized as the basic law which governs all of nature, including all materials and devices. It has always been essential to the understanding of material properties, and as devices become smaller it is also essential for studying their behavior. Nevertheless, only a small fraction of graduate engineers and materials scientists take a course giving a systematic presentation of the subject. The courses for physics students tend to focus on the fundamentals and formal background, rather than on application, and do not fill the need. This invaluable text has been designed to fill the very apparent gap.
The book covers those parts of quantum theory which may be necessary for a modern engineer. It focuses on the approximations and concepts which allow estimates of the entire range of properties of nuclei, atoms, molecules, and solids, as well as the behavior of lasers and other quantum-optic devices. It may well prove useful also to graduate students in physics, whose courses on quantum theory tend not to include any of these applications. The material has been the basis of a course taught to graduate engineering students for the past four years at Stanford University.
Customer Reviews:
explains microscopic quantum devices and structures.......2007-02-07
Harrison's book is a good compromise between learning the full, formal maths approach to quantum mechanics and a pragmatic desire by engineering students to know enough to do useful work. It deprecates such ideas as operators in Hilbert spaces in favour of describing such practical implementations as quantum dots, quantum wires, tunnelling and other inherently quantum phenomena.
The intent is to expose the reader to current active areas of solid state research and engineering, at the microscopic level when quantum effects must be taken into consideration. There is not enough here to do serious band structure calculations, for example. But you gain enough knowledge to understand and use band structure results that are presented to you.
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.
Book Description
Comprehensive, clearly presented work considers such subjects as quantization of the electron-positron field, response to an external field, quantization of free field, quantum electrodynamics, interacting fields, Heisenberg representation, the S-matrix, and Feynman's approach to quantum electrodynamics. An excellent resource for individuals as well as libraries and other institutions.
Customer Reviews:
A master teaches the basics of quantum field theory.......2002-01-15
These are notes taken from the Pauli lectures on field quantization at Zurich, where he taught for many years. They are magnificent in their clarity and succint as only Pauli could be. Basically they explain how to quantize the basic free fields and introduce in a beautiful way the Dyson method of introducing (perturbative) interactions, renormalization comprised. Fine points, like the Gupta-Bleuler method, get a critical and clear treatment. The language is surprisingly modern, with emphasis in vacuum expectation values, kernels, etc. The last chapter treats the Feynman method of path integrals. This must have been one of the very first published reviews of this method: it is done, of course, quite originally. One should read every scrap of paper left by Pauli, a deep and original thinker who expressed himself with unsurpassed clarity, let alone this lovingly produced book.
Book Description
Ideas from quantum field theory and string theory have had considerable impact on mathematics over the past 20 years. Advances in many different areas have been inspired by insights from physics.
In 1996--97 the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ) organized a special year-long program designed to teach mathematicians the basic physical ideas which underlie the mathematical applications. The purpose is eloquently stated in a letter written by Robert MacPherson: "The goal is to create and convey an understanding, in terms congenial to mathematicians, of some fundamental notions of physics ... [and to] develop the sort of intuition common among physicists for those who are used to thought processes stemming from geometry and algebra."
These volumes are a written record of the program. They contain notes from several long and many short courses covering various aspects of quantum field theory and perturbative string theory. The courses were given by leading physicists and the notes were written either by the speakers or by mathematicians who participated in the program. The book also includes problems and solutions worked out by the editors and other leading participants. Interspersed are mathematical texts with background material and commentary on some topics covered in the lectures.
These two volumes present the first truly comprehensive introduction to this field aimed at a mathematics audience. They offer a unique opportunity for mathematicians and mathematical physicists to learn about the beautiful and difficult subjects of quantum field theory and string theory.
Customer Reviews:
Amazingly different!.......2007-03-09
If you are a mathematician and want to know what QFT and string theory (ST) are about, or if you are a string theorist, but want to know more about the mathematics behind the theory, then this book is what you are looking for. This book is totally different than any other standard textbook on QFT or ST. Mathematicians will love the fact that it is written in a language that is (close to) theirs, and physicists will enjoy it (provided they have a more solid background in mathematics than the average practical physicists), because it shows QFT and ST from completely "new" angles.
The book is a collection of lectures given by the various contributors, which fit together perfectly . The first volume has a very good overview of concepts and definitions at the very beginning and serves as a more mathematically oriented introductory treatment of SUSY and QFT with many advanced topics near the end. The second volume starts with an axiomatic approach of CFT and its use in string theory and then quantises strings with the BRST method (on a more mathematical level than usual), which is done superbly.
It's a great reference, a wonderful textbook and a true delicacy in modern mathematical physics. A MUST HAVE for every mathematically inclined physicst or any mathematician with interests in physics! Great value for money...
Lots to learn..........2002-07-13
These articles are great. They do well in delineating the conceptual and rigorous frameworks of the subjects.
Included are exercises (and solutions) culminating from the problem sessions held at Quantum Field Theory program at IAS.
Physicists interested in the mathematical aspects of quantum field/string theory would do well to read these volumes as well.
Deserving, in my opinion, more than 5 stars -- many more!!
Definitely for mathematicians only.......2000-08-20
This book is an excellent compliation of articles written for mathematicians who want to understand quantum field theory. It is not surprising then that the articles are very formal and there is no attempt to give any physical intuition to the subject of quantum field theory. This does not mean however that aspiring physicists who want to specialize in quantum field theory should ont take a look at the contents. The two volumes are worth reading, even if every article cannot be read because of time constraints. All of the articles are written by the some of the major players in the mathematics of quantum field theory. Volume 1 starts off with a glossary of the terms used by physicists in quantum field theory and is nicely written. The next few hundred pages are devoted to supersymmetry and supermanifolds. A very abstract approach is given to these areas, with the emphasis not on computation but on the structure of supermanifolds as they would be studied mathematically. There is an article on classical field theory put in these pages, which is written by Pierre Deligne and Daniel Freed, and discussed in the framework of fiber bundles. The discussion of topological terms in the classical Lagrangian is especially well written. There is an introduction to smooth Deligne cohomology in this article, and this is nice because of the difficulty in finding understandable literature on this subject. Part Two of Volume 1 is devoted to the formal mathematical aspects of quantum field theory. After a short introduction to canonical quantization, the Wightman approach is discussed in an article by David Kazhdan. Most refreshing is that statement of Kazhdan that the Wightman approach does not work for gauge field theories. This article is packed with interesting insights, especially the section on scattering theory, wherein Kazdan explains how the constructions in scattering theory have no finite dimensional analogs. The article by Witten on the Dirac operator in finite dimensions is fascinating and a good introduction to how powerful concepts from quantum field theory can be used to prove important results in mathematics. A fairly large collection of problems (with solutions) ends Volume 1. The first part of Volume 2 is devoted entirely to the mathematics of string theory and conformal field theory. The article by D'Hoker stands out as one that is especially readable and informative. D. Gaitsgory has a well written article on vertex algebras and defines in a very rigorous manner the constructions that occur in the subject. The last part of Volume 2 discusses the dynamics of quantum field theory and uses as much mathematical rigor as possible. One gets the impression that it this is the area where it is most difficult to proceed in an entirely rigorous way. Path integrals, not yet defined mathematically and used throughout the discussion. The best article in Volume 2, indeed of the entire two volumes is the one on N = 2 Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. It is here that the most fascinating constructions in all of mathematics find their place. These two volumes are definitely worth having on one's shelf, and the price is very reasonable considering the expertise of the authors and considering what one will take away after reading them.
Average customer rating:
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Quantum-Based Electronic Devices and Systems (Selected Topics in Electronics and Systems , Vol 14)
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