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Comment by 0xFFC | Hacker News Reader

Not related : I am looking for a book about quantum physics but without (applied) math part, i dont have any problems with math and I enjoy pure-math, but i dont want to spend my time reading calculations. Kind of like deep phenomena going on in sub particle physics.

Haven’t find any yet, i would appreciate if suggest me any book.

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http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses

Leonard Susskind's series of courses at Stanford's School of Continuing Education are a treasure. They cover the math required, but the focus is on the pure math necessary so you can move on to the next thing, and not a lot on rote calculation.

This is great! Thanks.

This is the best. Thank you so much

There's a new book out this year, "Q is for Quantum" by Terry Rudolph. It uses only basic arithmetic and goes quite far into quantum entanglement and the nature of reality. And Terry is a cool dude (also a physicist at Imperial.)

It’s actually easier to understand quantum mechanics by only looking at the math, IMO. A lot of the weirdness simply disappears and it becomes the inevitable outcome of certain axioms.

But that way you don't develop much intuition.

Agreed. If you approach QM as just "linear algebra with complex numbers" plus "probabilities that can be negative or complex" it gets you a long way toward eliminating the woo factor. It's an incomplete description of course, but I find it helpful.

"The road to reality" by Roger Penrose is the only book I can think of that contains stuff like that without calculations etc. It contains a huge amount of content, and becomes better and better the more of the physics you read about in detail elsewhere.

This book is a marvel, but a tricky one. While offering an overview of modern math and physics on a truly encyclopedic scale, the text seems to vacillate in regards to the intended audience, lingering on trivialities while often rushing through complex topics. It may be hard to read without looking elsewhere for additional explanations of things.

Quantum physics is a vast field, what are you interested in? The basics like single particle quantum mechanics, or quantum field theory, or something very specific like entanglement, the Higgs mechanism, or quantum electrodynamics?

Some areas are more amenable to classical analogies than others which in turn somewhat dictates how far you can get without math. But I would say generally quantum physics just requires math if you want to get more than a very rough and superficial picture. The classical world we developed our intuitions in is just a very strange world as compared to the way nature really works at a fundamental level and so we are not well equipped to understand the world at those scales.

I want an introduction to. Getting familiar myself with different topics.

So you don't know any quantum, but you know the right way to learn it? There is no royal road to physics, there is no way to learn quantum without mathematics, it is a mathematical model of reality. I appreciate that you don't want to learn Linear Algebra and Hilbert Space calculus when you could be learning quantum, but the two are inseparable. Unless you want to ready about spooky action and crazy dead cats and feel like you understand. As someone else mentioned Road to Reality doesn't have a lot of symbols and equations, but it's a really tough book and you'd be better of with an undergrad QM textbook like Griffiths, Mandl or Dirac.

You could do worse than Feynman's QED. The main weakness from your probable POV is that it doesn't get into quantum computing or other modern developments. But it's short and very good.

On this topic, does anyone have something to say about _Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics_ by von Neumann?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Foundations_of_Qu...

Edit: No, wait! Did you _not_ want the mathematics? On a first reading, I thought you wanted the mathematical core, without getting bogged down in practicalities around it.

[Picturing Quantum Processes](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Picturing-Quantum-Processes-Diagram...) does quantum mechanics without calculations.

1) Quantum Physics by M. Raymer

2) Quantum Mechanics by A. Zagoskin

(in that order)

Both are excellent introductions into the subject, at slightly different levels (hence the order).

things life quantum tunneling and "not existing before measurements" are deep phenomena but might as well be magic until you understand decaying solutions to pdes and superposition, at which point they become very obvious. read a real book that's gentle.

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