| Visual Quantum Mechanics: Selected Topics with Computer-Generated Animations of Quantum-Mechanical Phenomena [With CDROM] 2000. Corr. 2nd Edition Contributor(s): Thaller, Bernd (Author) |
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ISBN: 0387989293 ISBN-13: 9780387989297 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover Published: June 2000 Annotation: The use of visualization techniques greatly enhances the understanding of quantum mechanics as it allows us to depict phenomena that cannot be seen by any other means. "Visual Quantum Mechanics" uses the computer generated animations found on the accompanying CD-ROM to introduce, motivate, and illustrate the concepts explained in the book. For example, by watching QuickTime movies of the solutions of Schroedinger's equation, students will be able to develop a feeling for the behavior of quantum mechanical systems that cannot be gained by conventional means. While there are other books on the market that use Mathematica and Maple to teach quantum mechanics, this book differs in that the text describes the mathematical and physical ideas of quantum mechanics in the conventional manner, with no special emphasis on computational physics or the requirement that the reader know a symbolic computation package or Mathematica. In this book, instead, the computer is used to provide easy access to a large collection of animated illustrations, interactive pictures, and lots of supplementary materials. "Visual Quantum Mechanics" takes a mathematical rather than a physical approach to quantum mechanics, and includes results more typical in more advanced books but which are more comprehensible via visualization. Despite the presentations of advanced results, the book requires only calculus, and the book will fill the gap between classical quantum mechanics texts and mathematically advanced books. The book will have a home page at the author's institution (http: //www.kfunigraz.ac.at/imawww/vqm/) which will include supplementary material, exercises and solutions, additional animations, and links toother sites with quantum mechanical visualization. This book along with its accompanying CD-ROM, which contains over 300 digital movies, form a complete introductory course on spinless particles in one and two dimensions. There is a second book in development which will cover such topics as spherical symmetry in three dimensions, the hydrogen atom, scattering theory and resonances, periodic potentials, particles with spin, an relativistic problems (the Dirac equation). |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Physics - Quantum Theory - Mathematics - Computers | Computer Graphics |
| Dewey: 530.120 |
| LCCN: 99042455 |
| Physical Information: 0.86" H x 7.32" W x 9.51" (1.60 lbs) 283 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the strange world of quantum mechanics the application of visualization techniques is particularly rewarding, for it allows us to depict phenomena that cannot be seen by any other means. Visual Quantum Mechanics relies heavily on visualization as a tool for mediating knowledge. The book comes TM with a CD-ROM containing about 320 digital movies in QuickTime f- mat, which can be watched on every multimedia-capable computer. These computer-generated animations are used to introduce, motivate, and ill- trate the concepts of quantum mechanics that are explained in the book. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then my hope is that each short animation (consisting of about a hundred frames) will be worth a hundred thousand words. The collection of ?lms on the CD-ROM is presented in an interactive en- TM vironmentthathasbeendevelopedwiththehelpofMacromediaDirector . This multimedia presentation can be used like an adventure game without special computer skills. I hope that this presentation format will attract the interest of a wider audience to the beautiful theory of quantum mechanics. |
