Since retiring, I have had time to read some
interesting books, and I plan to review some of them here.
Following are the first reviews.
- Introductory Quantum Optics, by
C. Gerry
and P. Knight., Cambridge University Press, 2005
Click here for the review in
untypset format which should be readable on any computer.
Click here to download the typset version gerryknight.pdf.
You will need the Adobe Acrobat program to read this file.
A similar review is posted on amazon.com.
Since that review could not contain symbols,
the discussion of some errors in the book referred to the file appendix.pdf for the technical details.
The typset version "gerryknight.pdf" above already contains
"appendix.pdf",
so if you have gerryknight.pdf, there is no need to download
appendix.pdf.
- Quantum
Optics, by M. Scully and M. Suhail Zubairy, Cambridge University
Press,
1997
Click here for the review
in untypeset
format which should be readable on any computer.
Click here to download the typset version
scullyzubairy.pdf. You will need
the Adobe Acrobat program to read this file.
- A
Guide to Experiments in Quantum Optics, Second edition,
by Hans-A. Bachor and Timothy C. Ralph, Wiley, 2004
Click here
for the review in untypeset format which
should
be readable on any computer.
Click here to download the typset version bachorralph.pdf
. You will
need the Adobe Acrobat program to read this file.
- Collective
Electrodynamics, by C. Mead, MIT Press, 2000.
To download the review of Collective
Electrodynamics in
.pdf format, click on mead.pdf.
- Quantum
Paradoxes: Quantum Theory for the Perplexed, by
Y. Aharonov and D. Rohrlich, Wiley, 2005
To download the review of Quantum
Paradoxes in .pdf format, click on paradoxes.pdf.
- Quantum
Computation and Quantum Information, by M. Nielsen
and I. Chuang, Cambridge University Press, 2000
There are two reviews, a short review similar to one I posted on
amazon.com, and a much longer review which discusses in detail
some aspects of the book about which I have wondered. The short
review is a text file, and the long one is in .pdf format. To
download the short review, click on shortquantcmp.txt
. For the long review, click on quantcmp.pdf
.
- Decoherence
and the Quantum-to-Classical Transistion, by
Maximilian
Schlosshauer, Springer, 2009
Added March 6, 2010. For the review in .txt format (only)
of "Decoherence", click here.
- The Geometry of Physics , by Theodore Frankel, First Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Note that this is not the latest edition.
The review in .txt format was originally placed on Amazon.com around June, 2016. This is a 5-star book (highest rating)!
- Curvature in Mathematics and Physics by Shlomo Sternberg, Dover, 2012
I rated this book 3 out of a highest 5 on Amazon.com, in a review titled "A good read but a poor textbook".
The review title pretty much says it all, and the reasons are given in the review itself in .txt format.
And, at some point I would like to review a very old book:
- Mathematical
Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, by G. Mackey, W.
A. Benjamin, 1963, republished by Dover, 2004
This is a masterpiece which is not as well known as
I
think it deserves.
It is basically a typset but otherwise nearly verbatim rendering
of the author's written lecture notes for a 1960 Harvard course.
A friend sent me the original mimeographed notes around 1963, and I was
enthralled.
I had already completed a year's graduate course in quantum mechanics,
of which relatively little seemed to make sense.
I was astonished that Mackey's notes made sense!
It may seem a little dated today, but not nearly as
much as one would expect after more than forty years.
Even today, I know of no better introduction to quantum mechanics
for
mathematically mature readers (U.S. Masters level at least).
I am rereading it, and still learning from it.