Based on the author’s long-standing course, this book provides a complete and comprehensive text for students in physics, maths, chemistry and engineering needing a detailed introduction to quantum mechanics.

Written in a lucid and engaging style, the author takes readers from an overview of classical mechanics and the historical development of quantum theory through to advanced topics. The mathematical aspects of quantum theory necessary for a firm grasp of the subject are developed in the early chapters, but an effort is made to motivate that formalism on physical grounds. Including animated figures and their respective Mathematica® codes, this book provides a complete and comprehensive text for students in physics, maths, chemistry and engineering needing an accessible introduction to quantum mechanics.

Part I Fundamentals

1 The Classical State

2 Origins of Quantum Mechanics

3 The Wave-like Behavior of Electrons

4 The Quantum State

5 Dynamics of the Quantum State

6 Energy and Uncertainty

7 Operators and Observations

Part II Exact Solutions

8 Rectangular Potentials

9 The Harmonic Oscillator

10 Symmetry and Degeneracy

11 Angular Momentum

12 The Hydrogen Atom

Part III Aspects of Spin

13 Electron Spin

14 The Addition of Angular Momentum

15 Identical Particles

16 Live Wires and Dead Stars

Part IV Approximation Methods

17 Time-Independent Perturbation Theory

18 Time-Dependent Perturbation Theory

19 Atoms and Light

20 The WKB Approximation

21 The Variational Method

22 Scattering Theory

Part V Advanced Topics

23 Bras and Kets and Canonical Quantization

24 Entangled States

25 The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

26 The Feynman Path Integral

27 A Glimpse of Quantum Field Theory

Bibliography