Introduction to Quantum Mechanics: A Time-Dependent Perspective

"Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" covers quantum mechanics from a time-dependent perspective in a unified way from beginning to end. Intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses this text will change the way people think about and teach quantum mechanics in chemistry and physics departments.

Customer Reviews:

Quantum Dynamics explained in an accessible, well written, readable book

By David Coker - February 12, 2007

The first part of Tannor's book presents a clear and easily accessible first pass at the basics of quantum dynamics. It takes the generic "wave packet" chapter, common to many traditional quantum physics texts, and expands it into a highly effective tool for building quantum intuition about nuclear dynamics in molecules, motivating fundamental theorems and important mathematical concepts and techniques. Part two develops the theory behind various approximate methods for treating quantum dynamics, and part three gives some excellent applications providing, for example, a well developed and approachable theoretical framework of modern pulsed laser nonlinear spectroscopy methods, and an especially nice chapter on control of chemical reactions by femtosecond pulse sequences, just to mention a couple of examples from the broad scope of applications given. The text is ideal for students of Chemistry, Physics, and engineering, accessible and challenging to both experimental and theory... read more

A novel, clear and modern exposition of quantum mechanics for advanced undergraduate and graduate studies

By Nadav Katz - February 15, 2007

This new book is a beautiful exposition of quantum mechanics from a somewhat unfamiliar orientation - the time dependent perspective. The use of wave-packets and their time evolution fits in very naturally (but not completely!) with classical intuition. This makes the quantum aspects of the system much more explicit and clear. Also, it is a more modern perspective for studying time-varying Hamiltonian (and even non-Hamiltonian) systems.

However, the standard eigenvalue perspective is not fully abandoned. It is taught in parallel to the time dynamics, augmenting and enhancing understanding of various examples throughout.

The book also contains some unique and highly accessible and intuitive overviews, hard to find anywhere else at this level. Specifically, Wigner and correlation functions are introduced in a very compelling manner. Also, scattering is taught both in the standard beaten track of scattering eigenstates, but also with the more modern and... read more

A second course in quantum mechanics

By A. Tal - November 14, 2006

The idea behind David Tannor's book is simple - instead of going the traditional route, in which one solves the eigenvalue problem of some hamiltonian and call it a day, Tannor chooses to examine the time evolution of simple quantum systems. He deals with scattering of wavepackets, bound particles (e.g. particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, etc ... ) and illustrates the features of quantum theory through such examples. It makes you wonder why no other book does the same - after all, the really interesting part of QM is quantum dynamics, isn't it? For example: the fact that the eigenfunction of an infinite well is a sine function is all very nice, but how do particles actually behave in such a well? And so forth.

I recommend this book for anyone who has already had a first course in QM the "traditional way" and now wants to learn how exactly quantum systems behave in a time dependent way.