PHY 256 - Reading assignments

Contents

• Textbook and some general references which may prove helpful, stimulating, or both
  • The required textbook is McIntyre's Quantum Mechanics, available online via the U of T Bookstore.
  • For further reading, I strongly recommend Richard P. Feynman's wonderful QED: the strange theory of light and matter, as well as the following alternate textbooks:
    
    • Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics
      
    • Feynman's Lectures on Physics vol. III (freely available online at http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html)
      
    • Former U of T colleague Terry Rudolph has a book aimed at high-school and junior-high-school students called "Q is for Quantum" which offers a unique introduction to QM assuming nothing but arithmetic.
      
      
    • And of course, there are always and
      

• Specific reading assignments
  • Background reading, ASAP (in parallel with math-prep videos)
    • Appendix B (complex numbers) of the textbook
    • Appendix C (matrices, basics of linear algebra)
  • To read before lecture 3, Monday 18 Sep 2023 (in parallel with perusing links on polarized light, playing with applets about Stern-Gerlach, etc.)
    • pp 1-25 of the textbook
  • To read before lecture 5, Monday 25 Sep 2023
    • Reading assignment 2a
    • Reading assignment 2b (Some references on 2-slit interference et cetera)
  • To read for lectures 6 and 7, Wednesday 27 Sep & Mon 2 Oct 2023
    • Reading assignment 3
  • To read by Weds 11 Oct 2023
    • Reading assignment 4
  • For 14-20 Oct 2023
    • Reading assignment 5
  • MIDTERM PREPARATION
    • PRACTICE PROBLEMS for midterm study
  • For 19-30 Oct 2023
    • Reading assignment 6
  • For 9-17 Nov 2023
    • Reading assignment 7
  • For 20-27 Nov 2023
    • Reading assignment 8
  • For 27 Nov - 7 Dec 2023
    • Reading assignment 9
  
  
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