How a laser works—A basic quantum mechanics perspective

Stig Stenholm

Salvatore Matteo Giacomuzzi

We will try to present critically published works on Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Psychology (perhaps more generally regarding the so called social sciences), partly by ourselves (Giacomuzzi, 2008, 2002), in an overview. It is of course impossible to give a complete summary here, but critical points should be emphasized, which perhaps leave a more differentiated view on the problems of "psychological reality". Nowadays QM is “hip” in scientific literature. But common approaches doesn`t take into consideration that physicists already 80 years ago tried to establish a connection between life sciences and physics. But do neuroscientific findings really validate essential psychological basic assumptions? Do they really open up new, interdisciplinary research perspectives? Physics itself today struggles with its theories and we`ve a big gap between on what we experience and on what we really understand. Maybe this gap of understanding our own reality is much bigger than 120 years ago when QM was born by the work of Max Planck.

Gennaro Auletta, Mauro Fortunato, Giorgio Parisi A

The important changes quantum mechanics has undergone in recent years are reflected in this approach for students. A strong narrative and over 300 worked problems lead the student from experiment, through general principles of the theory, to modern applications. Stepping through results allows students to gain a thorough understanding. Starting with basic quantum mechanics, the book moves on to more advanced theory, followed by applications, perturbation methods and special fields, and ending with developments in the field. Historical, mathematical and philosophical boxes guide the student through the theory. Unique to this textbook are chapters on measurement and quantum optics, both at the forefront of current research. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students will benefit from this perspective on the fundamental physical paradigm and its applications. Online resources including solutions to selected problems, and 200 figures, with colour versions of some figures, are available at www.cambridge.org/Auletta.

Marc Eichhorn

Sølve Selstø

This concise textbook introduces an innovative computational approach to quantum mechanics. Over the course of this engaging and informal book, students are encouraged to take an active role in learning key concepts by working through practical exercises. The book equips readers with some basic methodology and a toolbox of scientific computing methods, so they can use code to simulate and directly visualize how quantum particles behave. The important foundational elements of the wave function and the Schrödinger equation are first introduced, then the text gradually builds up to advanced topics including relativistic, open, and non-Hermitian quantum physics. This book assumes familiarity with basic mathematics and numerical methods, and can be used to support a two-semester advanced undergraduate course. Source code and solutions for every book exercise involving numerical implementation are provided in Python and MATLAB®, along with supplementary data. Additional problems are provided online for instructor use with locked solutions.

A. P. Kazantsev, Gregory I. Surdutovich