The Picture Book of Quantum Mechanics

Brandt, Siegmund; Dahmen, Hans Dieter

The aim of this book is to explain the basic concepts and phenomena of quantum mechanics by means of visualisation. Computer-generated illustrations in color are used extensively throughout the text, helping to establish the relation between quantum mechanics—wave functions, interference, atomic structure, and so forth—and classical physics—point mechanics, statistical mechanics, and wave optics. Even more important, by studying the pictures in parallel with the text, readers develop an intuition for such notoriously abstract phenomena as:

the tunnel effect
excitation and decay of metastable states
wave-packet motion within a well
systems of distinguishable and indistinguishable particles
free wave packets and scattering in 3 dimensions
angular-momentum decomposition
stationary bound states in various 3-dimensional potentials
hybrid states
Kepler motion of wave packets in the Coulomb field
spin and magnetic resonance

Illustrations from experiments in a variety of fields, including chemistry, and molecular, atomic, nuclear, and particle physics, underline the basic as well as the practical importance of quantum mechanics. In the present, fourth edition all computer graphics are presented in full colour. It also contains additional physics topics such as hybridisation.