Why Is Quantum Mechanics So Difficult? - Comments

In summary: I like Landau and Lifshitz too. Their Mechanics book was a revelation; QM, while good and better than most, wasn't quite as impressive to me as Ballintine. But like all books in that series it's, how to put it, terse, and the problems are, again how to put it, challenging, but to compensate actually relevant.
  • #246
Yes, learn the math and see the beauty in full.
 
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  • #247
houlahound said:
Didnt Hawking famously say - every equation he puts in a book takes X amount of sales off.

Paraphrased.
That's valid for popular science books. For textbooks on physics the opposite is true: The more formulae the author offers, the more steps are made explicit in a derivation, for the student the more simple it is to follow and understand the argument ;-).
 
  • #248
houlahound said:
Yes, learn the math and see the beauty in full.

There's nothing beautiful about having to observe everything projected onto a random choice among real-valued probabilities. But that's how the actual world works, and that's the mystery the public wants to understand.
 
  • #249
Define understand and how you know you understand something.

Personally I think the word understand is vague and rather useless.
 
  • #250
houlahound said:
Define understand and how you know you understand something.

As far as explaining physics to the public, I'd define understanding as a form of economic utility. Math is the only reliable way to grapple with the "Big Questions". If people are to expend time, money, and effort to learn mathematical physics, they expect to see how that's done. If that's not what they see promoted, they'll take the low road and learn nothing or less.
 
  • #251
Explaining equations in plain English does not mean there are no more equations. It means that the equations are written to be teaching tools themselves, rather than merely something to learn. I never thought it possible, but apparently they've been there for quite a while, hidden beneath a pile of Google trolls, and now the trolls have disappeared. (Obama's parting gift?) Here's an example:
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imp...issertations/2012/Alec-Owens-Dissertation.pdf

I suppose you think this math is ugly?
 
  • #252
Why should this be ugly?
 
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