🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C16F4H.Ft6@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jimmy -Jimbo- Wales) writes:
|> I'm interested in learning more about QM, and (particularly) about
|> the philosophical debates associated with interpretation of QM
|> results (theory and empirical).
|> 

|> 
|> I'm looking for books to read.  Anything from popular level books
|> that are well done, up to sophisticated books at a level consistent
|> with the level of preparation I have listed above will do.

	Try posting your request on sci.physics.  There's usually at least 
one thread going on over there on the interpretation of QM, and some 
(repeat, some) of the participants know something about the subject; they  
might have good references to offer.  
	As for good introductions to QM for non-physicists, I've just been 
given a second-hand quote from Gell-Mann to the effect that "there are none".   
I have run into one book that might be useful, _Quantum Mechanics in 
Simple Matrix Form_, by Thomas F. Jordan (Wiley, 1986).  It has the 
advantage that it doesn't require much math, and gets to things like Bell's 
inequalities (quite unusual in an intro book) without requiring you to bone 
up on, say, Hermite polynomials, or do lots of grubby, semi-real problems.  
On the other hand, he does not introduce a lot of the standard 
notation that you'd need for reading serious work on the subject.  Of the 
more standard introductory textbooks that happen to be lying about in my 
immediate vicinity, you might try _Introduction to the Quantum Theory_, 
by David Park (McGraw-Hill, 1974), since he treats "general principles" 
before applications.  This would also be a good question for sci.physics, 
by the way.


-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.