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Physics Bulletin

The Quantum Theory of Light

G. Barton

Published Mar 1, 1974• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

R Loudon Oxford: University Press 1973 pp xii + 338 price £7.50 One merit of Professor Loudon's book, uncommon in its field even in the attempt, is that he has cast it successfully in the tradition of normal physics texts. He starts roughly where undergraduate quantum mechanics courses leave off; introduces his topics as recognizably physics problems; keeps the mathematics to a reasonable minimum; and finally leaves the reader well placed not only to penetrate further technicalities but also to appraise them in context, and all the better for having been approached as a sane physicist, instead of being supposed ignorant of Planck's constant at the start and poised for engineering applications at the end.

DOI
10.1088/0031-9112/25/3/025

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R Loudon Oxford: University Press 1973 pp xii + 338 price £7.50 One merit of Professor Loudon's book, uncommon in its field even in the attempt, is that he has cast it successfully in the tradition of normal physics texts. He starts roughly where undergraduate quantum mechanics courses leave off; introduces his topics as recognizably physics problems; keeps the mathematics to a reasonable minimum; and finally leaves the reader well placed not only to penetrate further technicalities but also to appraise them in context, and all the better for having been approached as a sane physicist, instead of being supposed ignorant of Planck's constant at the start and poised for engineering applications at the end.
S.G. Lipson and H. Lipson London: Cambridge University Press. 1969 Pp. xiii + 494. Price £3 15s. This is intended as a textbook for advanced undergraduates and graduates in physics, and for others starting in a research which will require a knowledge of optical principles, but it only claims "to help in understanding" more basic texts. Some topics have been chosen from parts of the field of physics which are not normally regarded as 'optical' to emphasize the relevance of optical principles in those branches.
F Constantinescu and E Magyari Oxford: Pergamon 1971 pp vii + 410 price £5.70 This is a translation of a book apparently first published in eastern Europe two or three years ago and aimed at advanced undergraduates and beginning research students. It contains 319 solved problems, arranged in a dozen subject groups which include not only reasonably high level treatments of the standard topics (mathematical formalism, onedimensional models, angular momentum, atoms and molecules, various approximation methods) but also large sections on systems of identical particles and second quantization, on scattering theory and on relativistic quantum mechanics (the last two subjects together occupying over a quarter of the book).
This is an enjoyable book by a particle physicist of some distinction, who wrote several books on the theoretical aspects of his subject. He died soon after the book was finished. This book would seem a splendid tribute to his memory. The first five chapters are an excellent introduction to quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of a particle physicist. (A solid state physicist might include some other topics.) The next three chapters give some feeling for the excitement of particle physics and describe some of the zoo of curious creatures discovered in the depths of particle accelerators, and the forces between them: strong, electromagnetic and weak. The final chapter, 'Quantum Fields', is a tour de force. The author has a light touch and a pleasant sense of humour. He does not attempt to explain everything he mentions, but he makes it very clear when he does not. These points are beautifully illustrated by the following extract from the final chapter (p 245). 'It was said above that virtual particles come into play when the real collision ingredients are all close together. In fact, virtual particles are always in play. Even a single real particle, moving along in isolation, can emit and reabsorb virtual particles over and over again. This has the effect of shifting the physical mass of the particle away from the 'bare' value that entered into the Hamiltonian. That shift inevitably turns out to be slightly infinite, and there is a whole technology for isolating and redefining away this and a few other infinities that are characteristic of renormalisable quantum field theories. But we forebear to pursue these delicacies any further here.' I particularly like 'slightly infinite'. The publisher's blurb describes this book as being suitable for popular science readers. It is not. Its level of mathematics would make it very heavy going for anyone who had not taken at least one course in mathematics at university. This is a book which can be strongly recommended as a supplementary text for undergraduates studying quantum mechanics, and also as a book for professional physicists who wish to obtain an up-to-date description and explanation of particle physics. It ought to be in every library. P Borcherds