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Looking for a good intro to quantum physics


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My daughter is just lapping up the Painless Chemistry book (thanks dmmetler for the rec!).

 

In it, she's been exposed to the concept of quarks and she's really taken by this.

 

So I'd like to offer her some more beginner level info. 

 

Any ideas? Any thoughts?

 

What about Quantum Physics for Dummies? Anyone used that?

 

 

I do have Knight's College Physics ordered and on the way, so maybe we'll find what we need in it.

It can take aaaagggeees for things to get to us here, so we're waiting (im)patiently for that to arrive.

 

 

ETA: My daughter is nearing 11 and she's solid in algebra and trig, but we haven't done any calc yet.

Edited by chocolate-chip chooky
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Have you seen the Very Short Introduction books? There's one on quantum theory and one on particle physics.

 

No calculus required, IIRC.

 

ETA: try the Book Depository. They're all $11-$12.

Edited by Pegs
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I do have Knight's College Physics ordered and on the way, so maybe we'll find what we need in it.

 

Knight has a little bit of Quantum Physics in chapters 28 -30 of the book.

 

What kind of level are you thinking of? Has she had any physics? If she has not had any physics, I am not sure that this will be helpful, because, being the last 3 chapters of a 2-3 semester text, the book assumes that the student is familiar with the preceding material.

 

If she is interested in subatomic particles, I can highly recommend Fred Bortz' series of books, called Library of Sbatomic Particles.

They look deceptively slim, like children's books, with fairly large print, but are quite dense with information and more complex than you would guess based on their appearance. 

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Knight has a little bit of Quantum Physics in chapters 28 -30 of the book.

 

What kind of level are you thinking of? Has she had any physics? If she has not had any physics, I am not sure that this will be helpful, because, being the last 3 chapters of a 2-3 semester text, the book assumes that the student is familiar with the preceding material.

 

If she is interested in subatomic particles, I can highly recommend Fred Bortz' series of books, called Library of Sbatomic Particles.

They look deceptively slim, like children's books, with fairly large print, but are quite dense with information and more complex than you would guess based on their appearance. 

 

She's done a decent amount of physics I guess for a 10yr old, but we haven't formally worked through a solid text yet, hence Knight on its way (many thanks to you).

 

We've worked through LoF physics twice and she loved it. It's nowhere close to comprehensive, but she understands lots of basics and we used it to springboard into other investigations. She's really comfortable with things like equations of motion, projectile motion, use of vectors, energy transfer, forces etc. She's also worked through a decent portion of a physics MOOC.

 

Quite a bit of her physics knowledge (and interest) stems from learning about physicists such as Newton, Curie, and Einstein, and studying The Manhattan Project headed us off into more physics too. She just loves the history + science stuff.

 

So far her physics education has been eclectic and tied in with other studies, so I'm eagerly anticipating our use of Knight and having a bit of structure.

 

I'll have a look at the Bortz books - are there any in particular that you recommend to begin with? They are about $40ish to get to Australia, so I need to think carefully about which would meet our current needs best. Quarks? Or maybe we'd need to work through the electron, neutron and proton ones first?

 

Thanks heaps for your help. I really value your opinions.

Edited by chocolate-chip chooky
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Have you seen the Very Short Introduction books? There's one on quantum theory and one on particle physics.

 

No calculus required, IIRC.

 

ETA: try the Book Depository. They're all $11-$12.

 

Ooh, looks good.

Thanks heaps!

 

Book depository should give me frequent-buyer points. They are my go-to shop.

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There's a cute app called Quantum Cats-it's basically angry birds, only with cats in boxes that each exhibit a different type of quantum mechanics.

 

Also, not a book, but there is this lovable...erm...thing.,. (Maybe for an Easter Basket?) DD had to bring one home from the SSAR conference at KU. They have a grant to create science education programs and materials for quantum mechanics. http://www.quarked.org

 

 

https://biodiversity.ku.edu/visit/fossilogics-gift-shop/higgs

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Quite a bit of her physics knowledge (and interest) stems from learning about physicists such as Newton, Curie, and Einstein, and studying The Manhattan Project headed us off into more physics too. She just loves the history + science stuff.

 

This makes me recommend the Brief Lessons all the more. :) I was a physics major who rolled my eyes at my freshman year professor's attempt to connect the concepts we learned to historical figures in science. I just wanted to do the equations and get the right answer. Now that I'm listening to these expositions on how wildly divergent and beautiful Einstein's epiphany was; how eclectic were the variously conceived bases of quantum mechanics -- to the point that early contributors could be completely flummoxed by the developments of later contributors who built on their ideas; how iterative was the development of our modern view of the cosmos...it's incredible to see the human touch in everything. :)

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Qualified beekeeper regentrude kindly recommends a series of my books called "The Library of Subatomic Particles." I want to respond with thanks and also to note that the series has been updated and expanded as "Exploring the Subatomic World" (Cavendish Square, 2016). The old titles are all revised and updated (with minor corrections made), and the two new ones are Understanding Higgs Bosons and Understanding the Large Hadron Collider.

Details at http://www.fredbortz.com/Subatomic.htm

 

Edited by FredBortz
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