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Permalink Reply by Maske on December 20, 2010 at 1:53am

There are a couple of decent 'pop' books that explain the general ideas. Marcus Chown's "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You" is good for an afternoon's entertainment, and after your brain has eased into that, John Gribbin is always a fantastic read. I recommend his "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat". Although he has quite a few.. that's the only one I've read.

 

But the saying is correct (I forget who it's attributed to): "If you think you've understood quantum theory, you've understood nothing of quantum theory." It's stranger than most things.

 

Of course, we might not be talking about the same thing - I did a three week module in first year Physics called quantum mechanics.. it was just about electrons and their orbitals etc., loads of Aufbau diagrams.. but nothing wierd and freaky and wonderful.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on December 20, 2010 at 1:58am

It's attributed to Richard Feynman. Who also has some good publications on the subject.

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Permalink Reply by Cecilia on December 20, 2010 at 11:51am

Yeah, six easy pieces, well, for me, not so much.....maybe time to try again

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Permalink Reply by Radu Andreiu on December 20, 2010 at 2:04am

I think Wikipedia is a pretty good source.

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Permalink Reply by Isaac on December 20, 2010 at 2:56pm

"A Brief history Of Time" by Steven Hawking has plenty of information about quantum mechanics.

Whatever you do, stay away from that New Age quantum mind/quantum consciousness crap. It is pseudoscience that is just as bad, if not worse than Creationism. Quantum mechanics is very interesting, but quantum mysticism is a bunch of religious bullshit.

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Permalink Reply by Matt on December 20, 2010 at 3:02pm

Uh... i'm a Physics major, and as far as I know, there is no way to "superficially" learn anything. If you really want to understand Quantum Mechanics dude, don't take shortcuts. If you have the free time however, there are several philosophical books you could check out:
"The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene
"A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawkings
but if you have taken enough math classes (and by "enough", I mean up to Differential Equations and Mathematical Phsyics), you could check out some college level textbooks in Quantum Physics. Its really tough, but the mathematics explains it much more harmoniously than any spoken language ever could.

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Permalink Reply by Maske on December 20, 2010 at 6:12pm

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Permalink Reply by Radu Andreiu on December 20, 2010 at 6:17pm

WOW! That really cracked me up. Thanks for that!

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Permalink Reply by Isaac on December 20, 2010 at 7:00pm

I pretty much agree with this. I'm also majoring in physics, but as of now the only physics class I've taken in college is Mechanics of Solids and Fluids, which I got an A in and I've gotten A's in the first two semesters of calculus. I'm definitely going to learn quantum mechanics the real way during college when the time comes. Until then, A Brief History Of Time will suffice as quantum mechanics reading material for me. I also have a couple of Brian Greene books, but I haven't gotten around to reading them.

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