Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Laureate in physics, has written an exceptionally clear and coherent graduate-level textbook on modern quantum mechanics. This book presents the physical and mathematical formulations of the theory in a concise and rigorous manner. Although there are no figures in the book, there are useful indexes and problem sets with available at the end of each chapter. The footnotes contain references to the original papers cited. The equations are all explained step-by-step, and every term is defined. Weinberg illustrates the transition from the Schrӧdinger equation to the modern Hilbert space formulation. He presents a fresh, integrated approach to teaching this subject with an emphasis on symmetry principles. He also includes topics that are often missing from similar books: Bohm’s alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation, general scattering theory, magic numbers, the optical theorem, Feynman’s path-integral formalism, the Berry phase, Landau levels, entanglement, and quantum computing. Weinberg demonstrates his finesse as an excellent teacher and author.
Review by Barry R. Masters, Fellow of AAAS, OSA and SPIE. He is with the department of biomedical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA.