This book is for a large part based on my reading of the excellent book by Griffiths, [25]. It now contains essentially all material in that book in one way or the other. (But you may need to look in the notes for some of it.) This book also evolved to include a lot of additional material that I thought would be appropriate for a physically-literate engineer. There are chapters on relativity, numerical methods, thermodynamics, solid mechanics, electromagnetism, and nuclei.
Somewhat to my surprise, I find that my coverage actually tends to be closer to Yariv's book, [52]. I still think Griffiths is more readable for an engineer, though Yariv has some very good items that Griffiths does not.
Matthew Leung pointed out that I had left
and
right
mixed up in my discussion of the relativistic
Doppler effect. I am dyslexic that way.
The idea of using the Lagrangian for the derivations of relativistic mechanics is from A. Kompanayets, theoretical physics, an excellent book.
I rewrote the section on functions as vectors to some extent based on comments of Germano Galasso.
I thank Rob Vossen for pointing out some rather horrible typos in the section on Dirac notation.
I thank Chris Cline for pointing out a bad label on the dot product figure in the discussion of functions as vectors. I thank Richard Mertz and Mike Day for pointing out typos and poor phrasing in the same sections.
The nanomaterials lectures of colleague Anter El-Azab that I audited inspired me to add a bit on simple quantum confinement to the first system studied, the particle in the box. That does add a bit to a section that I wanted to keep as simple as possible, but then I figure it also adds a sense that this is really relevant stuff for future engineers. I also added a discussion of the effects of confinement on the density of states to the section on the free-electron gas.
I thank Swapnil Jain for pointing out that the initial subsection on quantum confinement in the pipe was definitely unclear and is hopefully better now.
I thank Ed Williams for pointing out a mistake in the formula for the combination probabilities of the hydrogen atom electrons and Johann Joss for one in the formula for the averaged energy of two-state systems.
Thomas Pak noted some poor phrasing in the section on metals and insulators.
The discussions on two-state systems are mainly based on Feynman’s notes, [22, chapters 8-11]. Since it is hard to determine the precise statements being made, much of that has been augmented by data from web sources, mainly those referenced.
I thank Murat Ozer for pointing out that the two highest wave
functions in N.2 were
The discussion of the Onsager theorem comes from Desloge, [12], an emeritus professor of physics at the Florida State University.
The section on conservation laws and symmetries is almost completely based on Feynman, [22] and [20].
Harald Kirsch reported various problems in the sections on conservation laws and on position eigenfunctions.
Bob Sokalski reported an error in the section on the two-state model.
The note on the derivation of the selection rules is from [25] and lecture notes from a University of Tennessee quantum course taught by Marianne Breinig. The subsection on conservation laws and selection rules was inspired by Ellis, [15].
The many-worlds discussion is based on Everett’s exposition, [17]. It is brilliant but quite impenetrable.
The section on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation comes from Wikipedia, [[21]], with modifications including the inclusion of spin.
The section on the Hartree-Fock method is mainly based on Szabo and Ostlund [46], a well-written book, with some Parr and Yang [34] thrown in.
The section on solids is mainly based on Sproull, [42], a good source for practical knowledge about application of the concepts. It is surprisingly up to date, considering it was written half a century ago. Various items, however, come from Kittel [29]. The discussion of ionic solids really comes straight from hyperphysics [[6]]. I prefer hyperphysics’ example of NaCl, instead of Sproull’s equivalent discussion of KCl. My colleague Steve Van Sciver helped me get some handle on what to say about helium and Bose-Einstein condensation.
The thermodynamics section started from Griffiths’ discussion, [25], which follows Yariv’s, [52]. However, it expanded greatly during writing. It now comes mostly from Baierlein [4], with some help from Feynman, [18], and some of the books I use in undergraduate thermo.
Mark Troll noted that the discussion of the specific heat of gases was pretty poorly written. I have rewritten it pretty much along the lines he suggested.
The derivation of the classical energy of a spinning particle in a magnetic field is from Yariv, [52].
The initial inspiration for the chapter on nuclear physics was the Nobel Prize acceptance lecture of Goeppert Mayer [[10]]. This is an excellent introduction to nuclear physics for a nonspecialist audience. It is freely available on the web. As the chapter expanded, the main reference became the popular book by Krane [31]. That book is particularly recommended if you want an understandable description of how the experimental evidence led physicists to formulate the theoretical models for nuclei. Other primary references were [36] and [40]. The Handbook of Physics, Hyperphysics, and various other web sources were also helpful. Much of the experimental data are from NUBASE 2003, an official database of nuclei, [3]. Updates after 2003 are not included. Data on magnetic moments derive mostly from a 2001 preprint by Stone; see [45]. Nu-Dat 2 [[12]] provided the the excited energy levels and additional reference data to validate various data in [45].
Lynn Bowen corrected a bad number on the life time of helium with another proton or neutron added, because I stupidly misread ys (yoctosecond) in a reference as y (year). Very embarrassing, especially as I was amazed by the number.
The discussion of the Born series follows [25].
The brief description of quantum field theory and the quantization of the electromagnetic field is mostly from Wikipedia, [[21]], with a bit of fill-in from Yariv [52], Feynman [18], Kittel [29], and citizendium [[2]]. The example on field operators is an exercise from Srednicki [43], whose solution was posted online by a TA of Joe Polchinski from UCSB.
Acknowledgments for specific items are not listed here if a citation is given in the text, or if, as far as I know, the argument is standard theory. This is a text book, not a research paper or historical note. But if a reference is appropriate somewhere, let me know.
Grammatical and spelling errors have been pointed out by Ernesto
Bosque, Eric Eros, Tag Jong Lee, Alastair McDonald, Samuel Rustan, Dan
Schmidt, Mark Vanderlaan, Ramaswami Sastry Vedamm, Mikas Vengris, Rob
Vossen, and Ed Williams. I will try to keep changing
therefor” into “therefore,
and
send” into “sent
, but they do keep
sneaking in.
Thank you all.