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Is there a good book which covers the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition? Reading

Is there a good book which covers the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition? Reading either independently does not provide the kind of engagement which can be provided with a combined exposition.

privatdozent 5y ago
Check out Purrington (2018), «The Heroic Age»
srathi 5y ago
Quantum by Manjit Kumar is my favorite. It is a novel like walkthrough of quantum development over the years.
leopd 5y ago
"Thirty Years that Shook Physics", by George Gamow, fits the bill pretty well.
edge17 5y ago
I'm a fan of biographies. The first half of Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography fits this. Helped me appreciate how unobvious certain things were prior to discovery.
- grilledcheez 5y ago
  Was going to recommend this too, one of the few biographies I have read cover to cover.
sparrigan 5y ago
You absolutely want this, relatively obscure, book: https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Interpretation-Quantum-Mechanics-Critical-Historical/dp/9810240392 https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Interpretation-Quantum-Me... There are some translation/copy-writing issues but don't let that put you off. It has a solid coverage of quantization of Hamiltonian mechanics in both matrix mechanics and wave mechanics, and then the unification of the two - all following the historical narrative.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Looks interesting, but at $969 for the hardcover and over $100 for the paperback, I think I’ll wait for the movie.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    The autopricers are a pox on the market. It's even worse when you contact the seller, making them a reasonable offer, and they reply that their pricing algorithm knows better.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      I know. There was an amusing article a while back showing autopricers from two merchants fighting with each other. I think one of the lessons was that you can pretend to have your own copy for sale, then keep lowering the price. The bot will follow you all the way down to almost zero—then you buy the book.
auntienomen 5y ago
The definitive history is Abraham Pais' treatise _Inward Bound_. He was a particle physicist who turned to writing history. Had the advantage not having been there and known the players.
jeffwass 5y ago
Below snippet is from the bottom of the article : Those interested in reading more about the “golden age” of quantum physics are encouraged to look up the books: Purrington, R. D. 2018. The Heroic Age. The Creation of Quantum Mechanics 1925-1940. Oxford University Press. Greenspan, N. T. 2005. The End of the Certain World. The Life and Science of Max Born. Wiley. Kumar, M. 2008. Quantum. Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality. Icon Books.
lisper 5y ago
> the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition Unfortunately, those are two completely different things because the history of the development of QM is a story of people stumbling around in the dark and making tons of mistakes, some of which still weigh down QM pedagogy to this day. So you can have historically accurate, or you can have technically clear, but you cannot have both at the same time. (It is, ironically, a sort of wave-particle duality with respect to quantum theory itself.) The biggest disconnect between the history and the technical reality is that, historically, entanglement was treated as not much more than a side show, an intellectual curiosity, but not really worthy of a central role in an exposition of QM. Today we know that entanglement is absolutely central to QM. It is in fact what QM is really all about, the thing that really distinguishes it from classical mechanics. And the reason for the long-standing intellectual disconnect is that entanglement doesn't manifest itself until you have two particles (obviously) but the vast majority of the heavy lifting in the early days was analyzing systems consisting of a single particle. Starting out that way incredibly misleading because it hides the distinction between physical space (where particles live) and configuration space (where the wave function lives). When you have only one particle, physical space and configuration space are the same. But that is just a very special case, one which leads you badly astray when you try to understand what is really going on under the QM hood. That's the reason it took so long to figure it out. I strongly recommend understanding the technical side first, which is really not all that hard if presented properly (which, unfortunately, it very rarely is). But once you understand the technical side in a modern light, the history becomes much easier to grok.
- Nitrolo 5y ago
  Any good books or other resources where it is presented well?
  - lisper 5y ago
    The best of what's available at the moment is (IMHO): David Z. Albert, "Quantum Mechanics and Experience" Tim Maudlin, "Philosophy of Science: Quantum Mechanics" (Space and Time is also a good read.) But I'm actually contemplating writing a book of my own because I think there's still a pretty significant gap insofar as none of these books get into quantum information theory at all, which I think is crucial to having a really solid understanding. Another really good book is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Challenge-Foundations-Mechanics-Astronomy/dp/076372470X/ https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Challenge-Foundations-Mechani... though it's a tad pricey, but it's actually a really good mix of technical and historical content because it describes the experiments that were done to show that the many unintuitive predictions of QM are actually true.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll came out recently and fits what you're describing. While I enjoyed it a lot of it went over my head so I may not be the best guide here. He also has a podcast that's pretty good called Mindscape.
throwaway81523 5y ago
Helge Kragh's biography of Dirac is sort of a subset of what you want. It goes past the 1930s and it focuses on Dirac, but Dirac's most famous works were in the 1920s and 1930s, and it covers them pretty well.
sparrigan 5y ago
Since a lot of general intros to QM are being suggested (rather than technical/historical texts), then here's another recommendation which is not technical nor historical, but comes as close as you can get to a proper understanding of QM without mathematical detail: https://www.qisforquantum.org/ https://www.qisforquantum.org/

privatdozent 5y ago

Check out Purrington (2018), «The Heroic Age»

srathi 5y ago

Quantum by Manjit Kumar is my favorite. It is a novel like walkthrough of quantum development over the years.

leopd 5y ago

"Thirty Years that Shook Physics", by George Gamow, fits the bill pretty well.

edge17 5y ago

I'm a fan of biographies. The first half of Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography fits this. Helped me appreciate how unobvious certain things were prior to discovery.

grilledcheez 5y ago
Was going to recommend this too, one of the few biographies I have read cover to cover.

sparrigan 5y ago

You absolutely want this, relatively obscure, book: https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Interpretation-Quantum-Mechanics-Critical-Historical/dp/9810240392 https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Interpretation-Quantum-Me... There are some translation/copy-writing issues but don't let that put you off. It has a solid coverage of quantization of Hamiltonian mechanics in both matrix mechanics and wave mechanics, and then the unification of the two - all following the historical narrative.

leephillips 5y ago
Looks interesting, but at $969 for the hardcover and over $100 for the paperback, I think I’ll wait for the movie.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  The autopricers are a pox on the market. It's even worse when you contact the seller, making them a reasonable offer, and they reply that their pricing algorithm knows better.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    I know. There was an amusing article a while back showing autopricers from two merchants fighting with each other. I think one of the lessons was that you can pretend to have your own copy for sale, then keep lowering the price. The bot will follow you all the way down to almost zero—then you buy the book.

auntienomen 5y ago

The definitive history is Abraham Pais' treatise _Inward Bound_. He was a particle physicist who turned to writing history. Had the advantage not having been there and known the players.

jeffwass 5y ago

Below snippet is from the bottom of the article : Those interested in reading more about the “golden age” of quantum physics are encouraged to look up the books: Purrington, R. D. 2018. The Heroic Age. The Creation of Quantum Mechanics 1925-1940. Oxford University Press. Greenspan, N. T. 2005. The End of the Certain World. The Life and Science of Max Born. Wiley. Kumar, M. 2008. Quantum. Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality. Icon Books.

lisper 5y ago

> the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition Unfortunately, those are two completely different things because the history of the development of QM is a story of people stumbling around in the dark and making tons of mistakes, some of which still weigh down QM pedagogy to this day. So you can have historically accurate, or you can have technically clear, but you cannot have both at the same time. (It is, ironically, a sort of wave-particle duality with respect to quantum theory itself.) The biggest disconnect between the history and the technical reality is that, historically, entanglement was treated as not much more than a side show, an intellectual curiosity, but not really worthy of a central role in an exposition of QM. Today we know that entanglement is absolutely central to QM. It is in fact what QM is really all about, the thing that really distinguishes it from classical mechanics. And the reason for the long-standing intellectual disconnect is that entanglement doesn't manifest itself until you have two particles (obviously) but the vast majority of the heavy lifting in the early days was analyzing systems consisting of a single particle. Starting out that way incredibly misleading because it hides the distinction between physical space (where particles live) and configuration space (where the wave function lives). When you have only one particle, physical space and configuration space are the same. But that is just a very special case, one which leads you badly astray when you try to understand what is really going on under the QM hood. That's the reason it took so long to figure it out. I strongly recommend understanding the technical side first, which is really not all that hard if presented properly (which, unfortunately, it very rarely is). But once you understand the technical side in a modern light, the history becomes much easier to grok.

Nitrolo 5y ago
Any good books or other resources where it is presented well?
- lisper 5y ago
  The best of what's available at the moment is (IMHO): David Z. Albert, "Quantum Mechanics and Experience" Tim Maudlin, "Philosophy of Science: Quantum Mechanics" (Space and Time is also a good read.) But I'm actually contemplating writing a book of my own because I think there's still a pretty significant gap insofar as none of these books get into quantum information theory at all, which I think is crucial to having a really solid understanding. Another really good book is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Challenge-Foundations-Mechanics-Astronomy/dp/076372470X/ https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Challenge-Foundations-Mechani... though it's a tad pricey, but it's actually a really good mix of technical and historical content because it describes the experiments that were done to show that the many unintuitive predictions of QM are actually true.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll came out recently and fits what you're describing. While I enjoyed it a lot of it went over my head so I may not be the best guide here. He also has a podcast that's pretty good called Mindscape.

throwaway81523 5y ago

Helge Kragh's biography of Dirac is sort of a subset of what you want. It goes past the 1930s and it focuses on Dirac, but Dirac's most famous works were in the 1920s and 1930s, and it covers them pretty well.

sparrigan 5y ago

Since a lot of general intros to QM are being suggested (rather than technical/historical texts), then here's another recommendation which is not technical nor historical, but comes as close as you can get to a proper understanding of QM without mathematical detail: https://www.qisforquantum.org/ https://www.qisforquantum.org/