Best materials science books according to Reddit
Reddit mentions of Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles
Sentiment score: 4
Reddit mentions: 10
We found 10 Reddit mentions of Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. Here are the top ones.
- New
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- Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
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| Height | 9.99998 Inches |
| Length | 6.401562 Inches |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Weight | 4.17996448752 Pounds |
| Width | 1.598422 Inches |
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#1 of 112
All of the books I can see from top to bottom on Amazon:
Books & Speakers | Price (New)
---|---
Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering (4th Edition) | $122.84
Molecular Thermodynamics | $80.17
Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach | $89.59
Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles | $128.32
Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (The Mcgraw-Hill Chemical Engineering Series) | $226.58
Organic Chemistry 8th Edition | $186.00
Elementary Differential Equations | $217.67
Numerical Methods for Engineers, Sixth Edition | $200.67
Applied Partial Differential Equations | $20.46
Transport Phenomena, 2nd Edition | $85.00
Basic Engineering Data Collection and Analysis | $239.49
Calculus (9th Edition) | $146.36
Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes, 3rd Edition | $206.11
Inorganic Chemistry (4th Edition) | $100.00
Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer | $197.11
Biochemistry: A Short Course, 2nd Edition | $161.45
Separation Process Principles: Chemical and Biochemical Operations | $156.71
University Physics with Modern Physics (13th Edition) | $217.58
Speakers | $50.00
Most you can get is $1476.86 (selling all of the books (used and hard cover) in person), and if you sell it on Amazon, they take around 15% in fees, so you'll still get $1255.33. But wait...if you sell it to your university's book store, best they can do is $.01.
Total cost: $2832.11 (including speakers)
Net loss: -$1355.25 (books only). If sold on Amazon, net loss: -$1576.78 (books only). Speakers look nice; I wouldn't sell them.
Edit: Added the two books and the table. /u/The_King_of_Pants gave the price of speakers. ¡Muchas gracias para el oro! Reminder: Never buy your books at the bookstore.
Edit 2: Here are most of the books on Library Genesis
Thanks to /u/WhereToGoTomorrow
Griffiths > Eisberg > Sakurai > Zee > Peskin
Peres and Ballentine offer a more quantum information oriented approach, read em after Griffiths.
Shankar before Sakurai, after Griffiths.
In that order. Your best bet though, is to find the appropriate section in the nearest university library, spend a day or two looking at books and choose whatever looks most interesting/accessible. Be warned, it seems that everyone and their cat has a book published on quantum mechanics with funky diagrams on the cover these days. A lot of them are legitimate, but make little to no effort to ensure your understanding or pose creative problems.
I just want to point out one thing that everyone seems to be glossing over: when people say that you'll need to review classical mechanics, they aren't talking only about Newtonian Mechanics. The standard treatment of Quantum Mechanics draws heavily from an alternative formulation of classical mechanics known as Hamiltonian Mechanics that I'm willing to bet you didn't cover in your physics education. This field is a bit of a beast in its own right (one of those that can pretty much get as complicated/mathematically taxing as you let it) and it certainly isn't necessary to become an expert in order to understand quantum mechanics. I'm at a bit of a loss to recommend a good textbook for an introduction to this subject, though. I used Taylor in my first course on the subject, but I don't really like that book. Goldstein is a wonderful book and widely considered to be the bible of classical mechanics, but can be a bit of a struggle.
Also, your math education may stand you in better stead than you think. Quantum mechanics done (IMHO) right is a very algebraic beast with all the nasty integrals saved for the end. You're certainly better off than someone with a background only in calculus. If you know calculus in 3 dimensions along with linear algebra, I'd say find a place to get a feel for Hamiltonian mechanics and dive right in to Griffiths or Shankar. (I've never read Shankar, so I can't speak to its quality directly, but I've heard only good things. Griffiths is quite understandable, though, and not at all terse.) If you find that you want a bit more detail on some of the topics in math that are glossed over in those treatments (like properties of Hilbert Space) I'd recommend asking r/math for a recommendation for a functional analysis textbook. (Warning:functional analysis is a bit of a mindfuck. I'd recommend taking these results on faith unless you're really curious.) You might also look into Eisberg and Resnick if you want a more historical/experimentally motivated treatment.
All in all, I think its doable. It is my firm belief that anyone can understand quantum mechanics (at least to the extent that anyone understands quantum mechanics) provided they put in the effort. It will be a fair amount of effort though. Above all, DO THE PROBLEMS! You can't actually learn physics without applying it. Also, you should be warned that no matter how deep you delve into the subject, there's always farther to go. That's the wonderful thing about physics: you can never know it all. There just comes a point where the questions you ask are current research questions.
Good Luck!
See if you can find this in a bookshop or library, it is a more readable, introductory level text:
Have a look at reviews here (ignore the silly price):
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373928683&sr=1-1
This seemed to be cheapest available copy here:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=10592106949
I haven't read Feynman's books, so can't can't comment on that.
Again, the domains of physics themselves describe it. I can't give you years of physics edcuation on a reddit post. Do you have multivariable calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra? If so, then you can read the descriptions. And here's what you asked for:
https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-Theory-Nutshell-nutshell/dp/0691140340
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-3527406018,subjectCd-PH20.html
https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X
Those three intros will give you a decent (though not complete) description of what matter is.
Have you tried the Feynman lectures?. Give them a look since they're free. It's on the lighter side for maths but does sacrifice completeness. Unfortunately, your going to have to learn some form of linear algebra and possibly multi along the way.
Without linear/multi the best progress you can make is getting a wishy-washy feel for things, which from experience really doesn't satisfy. You'r best resources will by far be wikipedia and youtube. They definitely contain the most thought through explanations of intro level material and present the math appropriately.
If you really want a book, Eisberg's Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles is a push but really great for intro level stuff.
So I haven't used his other books but I really enjoyed his QM book in small pieces. It's extremely condensed so I found I got the most out of it when I sat there and worked all the math out between the equations and making sure I understood each step before I went on to the next, which often involved Wikipedia as well. This was different than books like Shankar or Eisberg and Resnick which I often felt I could just sit there and read.
I've heard that most physics people absolutely love going back to Griffiths because he makes very elegant arguments very well. But it's sometimes pretty difficult for a new student to catch everything the first time if you aren't seriously taking your time with it. I think I did get a lot out of seriously working through it though.
You won't need linear algebra at all for anything the P. Chem series.
Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics, and Statistical Mechanics will all require knowledge of Multivariable Calculus. You don't need to be a master at calculus, but you will need to understand key concepts and how to apply them.
Edit: I also used Engel & Reid. I hated the book. I thought it was very confusing and poorly written. I'm currently reading a book for [Quantum Physics] (http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342751051&sr=8-1&keywords=quantum+physics+of+atoms.+molecules.+solids.+nuclei.+and+particles) and it has helped my view with quantum mechanics immensely. It's from 1985 and I picked it up for $10, but the price seemed to have skyrocketed to $40 used.
I liked Sakurai for quantum mechanics. People say it's really difficult but I didn't find that at all, in fact I found it much easier than Shankar since there isn't a vast amount of mathematics in the first chapter, it just introduces you to exactly what you need to know.
I think that it is an unpopular opinion here but I think that you should do wave mechanics before going to Dirac's quantum mechanics, so I'd suggest Eisberg and Resnick before anything else https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X
You should find what you are looking for in
http://www.amazon.ca/Quantum-Physics-Molecules-Solids-Particles/dp/047187373X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410799889&sr=8-1&keywords=resnick+quantum+physics