Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Odd Quantum
    The Odd Quantum
    The Odd Quantum
    Ebook258 pages5 hours

    The Odd Quantum

    By Sam Treiman

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    An acclaimed physicist’s accessible yet rigorous introduction to quantum mechanics for nonspecialists

    This is a rare and much-needed book: a concise but comprehensive account of quantum mechanics for popular science readers written by a respected physicist. Sam Treiman—internationally renowned for his work in particle physics—makes quantum mechanics accessible to nonspecialists. Combining mastery of the material with clear, elegant prose and infectious enthusiasm, he conveys the substance, methods, and profound oddities of the field.

    Treiman begins with an overview of quantum mechanics. He sketches the early development of the field by Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others, and he makes clear how the quantum outlook flies in the face of common sense. As he explains, the quantum world is intrinsically probabilistic. For example, a particle is not in general in some particular place at a given instant, nor does it have a definite momentum. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, there is a limit to how well both location and momentum can be specified simultaneously. In addition, particles can move through barriers and otherwise move in regions of space that are forbidden by classical mechanics. If a particle has a choice of different paths, it pursues all of them at once. Particles display wave-like characteristics and waves show particle-like characteristics. Treiman pays special attention to the more fundamental wave outlook and its expression in quantum field theory. He deals here with the remarkable fact that all the particles of a given species are strictly identical, and with the unnerving fact that particles can be created and destroyed. As Treiman introduces us to these and other wonders, he also touches—without resolution—on some of the deep philosophical problems of quantum mechanics, notably how probabilities become facts.

    Weaving together impeccable science, engaging writing, and a talent for clear explanation honed over Treiman's distinguished career as a physicist and teacher, The Odd Quantum is a remarkable survey of a field that changed the course of modern scientific and philosophical thought.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 7, 2002
    ISBN9781400823093
    The Odd Quantum
    Author

    Sam Treiman

    Sam Treiman was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus at Princeton University. He cowrote Current Algebra and Its Applications (Princeton) with R. Jackiw and D. Gross, Current Algebra and Anomalies (Princeton) with R. Jackiw, B. Zumino, and E. Witten, and Formal Theory of Scattering with C. Grosjeans. He wrote numerous articles, mostly centered on the study of fundamental particles, for leading physics journals. Professor Treiman died in 1999.

    Related to The Odd Quantum

    Related ebooks

    Physics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      When Gravity Breaks Down

      Feb 15, 2019

      When Gravity Breaks Down
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Sacred, Spherical Cows of Physics: Theoretical physics milks symmetry to power its newest tool.

      May 1, 2014

      Early in their training, many physics students come across the idea of spherical cows. Cows in the real world—even at their most plump and well-fed—are hardly spherical, and this makes it tricky to calculate things like, say, how their volume or surf

      11 min read

    • Article

      How to Build a Probability Microscope: The surprising mathematics of the extremely rare.

      Jan 26, 2017

      If the rumors are true, 20th Century Fox will release a remake of the 1966 science-fiction film Fantastic Voyage in the next year or two. The conceit behind the film is that its protagonists are shrunk down and injected into the human body, through w

      9 min read

    • Article

      How the Universe Remembers Information

      Feb 28, 2019

      It was one of the great missed connections of physics. In 1965 a particle theorist derived a formula for the collision of elementary particles. Twenty years later two gravitation theorists, using completely different techniques, derived a formula for

      6 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Entanglement

      Oct 1, 2021

      Quantum Entanglement
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Mathematicians Should Stop Naming Things After Each Other

      Sep 2, 2020

      Any student of modern math must know what it feels like to drown in a well of telescoping terminology. For a high-profile example, let’s take the Calabi-Yau manifold, made famous by string theory. A Calabi-Yau manifold is a compact, complex Kähler ma

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Disappearing Physicist and His Elusive Particle

      Jul 25, 2019

      The members of the physics institute at Via Panisperna were in the habit of giving themselves jocular nicknames: Enrico Fermi was “The Pope,” Orso Corbino was “God the Almighty,” and Franco Rasetti was “The Cardinal Vicar.” It was 1930, and the Itali

      11 min read

    • Article

      With Prof Brain Greene

      Dec 31, 2016

      Theoretical physicist Brian Greene has spent his life understanding the gravity of the smallest questions of our Universe. A world leader in superstring theory, Prof Greene is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Ph

      6 min read

    • Article

      What Quantum Gravity Needs Is More Experiments

      Feb 2, 2017

      In the mid-1990s, I studied mathematics. I wasn’t really sure just what I wanted to do with my life, but I was awed by the power of mathematics to describe the natural world. After classes on differential geometry and Lie algebras, I attended a semin

      8 min read

    • Article

      What Quantum Gravity Needs Is More Experiments

      Dec 12, 2019

      In the mid-1990s, I studied mathematics. I wasn’t really sure just what I wanted to do with my life, but I was awed by the power of mathematics to describe the natural world. After classes on differential geometry and Lie algebras, I attended a semin

      8 min read

    • Article

      Watch This Space

      Feb 12, 2023

      Watch This Space
      1 min read

    • Article

      Hunting The Hidden Quarks

      Dec 5, 2019

      Hunting The Hidden Quarks
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ghosts In The Machine

      Mar 11, 2020

      Ghosts In The Machine
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Joy of Condensed Matter

      Feb 24, 2021

      Everyone seems to be talking about the problems with physics: Peter Woit’s book Not Even Wrong, Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics, and Sabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math leap to mind, and they have started a wider conversation. But is all of phys

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Trouble with Theories of Everything: There is no known physics theory that is true at every scale—there may never be.

      Oct 1, 2015

      Whenever you say anything about your daily life, a scale is implied. Try it out. “I’m too busy” only works for an assumed time scale: today, for example, or this week. Not this century or this nanosecond. “Taxes are onerous” only makes sense for a ce

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Joy of Condensed Matter: Hard times in fundamental physics got you down? Let’s talk excitons.

      Dec 31, 2021

      Happy Holidays. In this special issue we are reprinting our top stories of the past year. This article first appeared online in our “Wonder” issue in February, 2021. Everyone seems to be talking about the problems with physics: Peter Woit’s book Not

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Odd Quantum

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Odd Quantum - Sam Treiman

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1