Customer Reviews (1)

a definitive treatment of nuclear theory
This 2nd edition comes 50 years after the 1st edition. Much of the material appears unchanged. Bethe died only last year [2005]. But in 1956, he was already one of the giants in physics due to his massive contributions to the study of the nucleus.

The book lacks the rich illustrations typical of current textbooks. But if you can ignore that, then it provides for a definitive education in our understanding of the nucleus. It is suitable for an undergrad reader who has done an earlier course in quantum mechanics. By the very nature of nuclear interactions, most of the discussion is outside the realm of classical mechanics, and you do need that quantum background. ... Read more

Book Description
Graduate students in both theoretical and experimental physics will find this third edition of Intermediate Quantum Mechanics, refined and updated in 1986, indispensable. The first part of the book deals with the theory of atomic structure, while the second and third parts deal with the relativistic wave equations and introduction to field theory. Throughout its nearly thirty-five years in print, Intermediate Quantum Mechanics has consistently offered more complete coverage of applications of quantum mechanics than any other single-volume work on the subject. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

very good
This is a very useful book, but only for someone with a solid grasp of QM at the undergrad level.The only problem is the terrible type in which the equations are set.Why Addison-Wesley released a new edition without fixing this is beyond me.
(profit, perhaps?No, never on a scholarly textbook.)

A good overview
That quantum mechanics must be understood by anyone working in any area of technology is now well accepted. Indeed, semiconductor device physics, proteomics, and computational chemistry are just three of the more modern areas where a through knowledge of quantum mechanics is needed in order to make any kind of significant progress. This book, written by two of the major players in the development of quantum mechanics in the 20th century, is an excellent overview of how to do practical computations in quantum mechanics. The book is addressed primarily to the aspiring atomic physicist and spectroscopist, but it could serve well anyone interested in the applications of quantum mechanics, such as those in the aforementioned fields. Due to space limitations, I will only review the first 8 chapters of the book.

Chapter 1 is a brief overview of elementary quantum mechanics, and the authors set down the notation and units to be followed in the book. They state the main goal of the book, which is to solve the Schrodinger equation for an atom with nuclear charge Ze. This problem for one-electron is straightforwardly solved, but for more than one electron approximation techniques must be used, a few of which they mention. Since spin will have to be dealt with throughout the book, the authors include a description of spin 1/2 particles.

In chapter 2 the authors discuss the use of symmetry principles in quantum many-particle systems, pointing out the origin of exchange degeneracy and the Pauli exclusion principle. The authors also give an interesting discussion of the experimental determination of symmetry, particularly their argument for the absence of hidden variables.

In chapter 3 the authors give an overview of the quantum mechanics of two-electron atoms, pointing out that the calculations give six-figure agreement between theory and experiment. Perturbation and variational methods are used to solve the Schrodinger equation for this system, and show the origin of the triplet and singlet levels for the helium atom.

In chapter 4, the authors introduce another approximation technique, the self-consistent field or "Hartree-Fock" method, in order to calculate the excited states for the two-electron atom more efficiently. This approach involves using a variational trial function, called the determinantal wave function, as an ansatz, which because of orthogonalityand parity considerations, results in a set of equations, called the Hartree-Fock equations, for the single electron orbitals. The "exchange term" in these equations is discussed in detail, involving a notion of a "nonlocal" potential. The physical significance of the eigenvalue in these equations is also discussed, and related to the famous Koopman theorem. It is proven also that atoms with closed shells leads to a spherically symmetric theory. The periodic table is shown to be a consequence of the Pauli principle and the Hartree-Fock calculation.

An improvement to Hartree-Fock, the Thomas-Fermi method, which does not include exchange, is discussed in chapter 5. Classified as a "statistical method", this method finds the effective potential energy experienced by a small test charge, along with the electron density around the nucleus. The authors show how exchange effects can be included using a procedure due to P.A.M. Dirac, which uses a concept of effective exchange potential, and one due to W. Lenz, which is a constrained optimization procedure, requiring that the total energy be stationary.

In order to remove the degeneracy in the atomic shells due to the Hartree-Fock approximation, the authors view it as a perturbation expansion in chapter 6, with the unperturbed Hamiltonian being the Hartree-Fock central field Hamiltonian, and the perturbation being the electrostatic interaction of the electrons minus a suitable average of it. The search forproper linear combinations of zero-order degenerate eigenfunctions to make the total Hamiltonian diagonal entails the use of the total orbital and spim angular momentum of all the electrons in the atom. Hence the authors outline in detail how to perform the addition of angular momenta in this chapter. The reader can see clearly the origin of the famous Clebsch-Gordon coefficients. This program is carried out in more detail in chapter 7, wherein the authors considers and atom which has an electron configuration distributed over several complete and one incomplete shell. The incomplete shell gives several different degenerate solutions, and this degeneracy can be removed by the assignment of angular momentum and spin quantum numbers to the orbitals in the shell. This chapter is characterized by a considerable amount of arithmetic in computing matrix elements, which can readily be handled by modern symbolic computation packages.

The contribution of the spin-orbit interaction to the level structure of atoms, ignored in the previous two chapters, is studied in chapter 8. The authors also consider the interaction of the electron configuration with an external field, such as a magnetic field. The spin-orbit interaction is not considered in a relativistic framework, but instead is given a "pseudo-derivation", in the words of the authors. The (correct) Dirac theory for spin-orbit interaction is given later in chapter 22. And here again, the matrix elements, and reduced matrix elements, considered in this chapter can best be handled by symbolic computation packages. This is particularly true for matrix elements of vector operators between states of different angular momentum, which the authors shy away from. The reader though can see the origin of the famous Wigner-Eckart theorem in the context of these computations. The Zeeman effect, resulting from the interaction of an electron with a homogeneous magnetic field, is discussed, along with the Paschen-Back effect, which results from the external magnetic field being strong enough to allow the Zeeman term in the Hamiltonian to dominate the spin-orbit interaction. Also discussed is the Stark effect, which results when an atom is placed in an external electric field. The authors show how to compute the energy shifts in this case, using, but not proving, some formulas due to Condon and Shortly.

Learn to apply your quantum mechanics
The "Intermediate" of the title means that you are supposed tohave learned your basic QM in a book such as Griffiths' "Introductionto Quantum Mechanics" . Bethe's text then leads you to those parts ofQM most successful in applications, especially in atomic structure. Thetreatment of perturbation theory is very clean, simple and effective. Thesemi-classical theory of radiation is excellently described and then, inperhaps the best part of the book, is used to review Einstein's derivationof Planck's equilibrium distribution of radiation, explaining the need forspontaneous emmission and motivating the treatment of quantumelectrodynamics, outlined at the end of the text. This is a great book.What else could one expect from Hans Bethe, the man who discovered how theSun produces its energy? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a towering figure in modern physics
An outstanding collection of essays, written over 50 years, by one of the giants of twentieth century physics. Hans Bethe won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on stellar evolution. He is perhaps the most senior figure from the Manhattan Project still living.

The essays are nontechnical, and mostly discuss the nuclear arms race. Many were cowritten with other prominent scientists, like Richard Garwin. These essays span the Cold War, and most have a common theme of how to avoid a nuclear war.

The book concludes with essays by Bethe on other prominent physicists that he has known. Freeman Dyson. J Robert Oppenheimer. Richard Feynman [who got his PhD from Bethe]. The essay on Feynman echoes what Bethe said in a memorial lecture for Feynman, given at Los Alamos in 1988, shortly after Feynman's death. [I was fortunate to be present at the latter lecture.] ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Meet the Heros
This is a collection of lectures (I suppose in 1968) by those authoritieswho actually created the physic as we know it today. Very much accessibleand provides a rare chance to look into the minds of the giants. Tointroduce some of them:

Hans Bethe. A teacher, collaborator, and goodfriend of R.P. Feynman. Participated in the Manhattan Project and helpedcreate the bomb. The man who first realized what fuels the sun. Got hisNobel Prize for this realization (1967, thermonuclear processes).

P.A.M.Dirac. Created relativistic quantum mechanics and so-called the"symbolic formulation" of quantum mechanics (the bra-ketnotation). His theory formed a basis for later developments of quantumelectrodynamics (QED). More of a mathematician. Had a very deep faith inmathematics. Seldom talked in public.

Werner Heisenberg. Father of _the_quantum machanics. His formulation parallels Erwin Schrodinger's in that,though they used different mathematical languages, they described the samething. Heisenberg's so-called "matrix formulation" was madepossible by his great collaborators, i.e., Jordan, Born and Bohr. He was inthe German camp when the major forces concentrated their powers indeveloping the A-bomb. Heisenberg had thought an A-bomb was a theoreticalimpossibility. Philosophically, he was forever a disciple of Niels Bohr.With Bohr, he was the guru of an orthodox interpretation of quantummechanics, known as the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Eugene Wigner. Amathematician who won a Nobel prize in physics. A classmate of J. von.Neumann. He had a kind and gentle personality (quite rare among famousphysicists). Wigner was the man who gave a Ph.D. to E. Jaynes, who wasdoing research on QED under Oppenheimer and had some difficulties inaccepting quantum mechanics. Wigner, too, had troubles with the CopenhagenInterpretation and presented a unique interpretation that takesconsciousness into account. To most of us, known by his 3-j symbol.

Toobad that Landau (a god figure in condensed matter physics) was not there toshare his insights. ... Read more

Book Description
In published papers H A Bethe and G E Brown worked out the collapse of large stars and supernova explosions. They went on to evolve binaries of compact stars, finding that in the standard scenario the first formed neutron star always went into a black hole in common envelope evolution. C J Lee joined them in the study of black hole binaries and gamma ray bursts. They found the black holes to be the fossils of the gamma ray bursts. From their properties they could reconstruct features of the burst and of the accompanying hypernova explosions.

This invaluable book contains 23 papers on astrophysics, chiefly on compact objects, written over 23 years. The papers are accompanied by illuminating commentary. In addition there is an appendix on kaon condensation which the editors believe to be relevant to the equation of state in neutron stars, and to explain why black holes are formed at relatively low masses. ... Read more

Book Description
Hans A. Bethe received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1967 forhis work on the production of energy in stars. A living legend amongthe physics community, he helped to shape classical physics intoquantum physics and increased the understanding of the atomic processesresponsible for the properties of matter and of the forces governingthe structures of atomic nuclei.This collection of papers byProfessor Bethe dates from 1928, when he received his PhD, to now. Itcovers several areas and reflects the many contributions in researchand discovery made by one of the most important and eminent physicistsof all time. Special commentaries have been written by Professor Betheto complement the selected papers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

70+ years of major research papers
This is a collection of key research papers, spanning an incredible 70 plus years of prodigious output by one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. Amazingly, as I write this in 2005, he is still alive, at the age of 99.

The papers are really written for a physicist. All research level, and may not be that meaningful to others outside the field. Ah, but to a physicist, it is remarkable that you can read a paper on quantum mechanics, written in the 1930s, when the subject was so dazzlingly new, and know that the author is still around, and quite lucid. Many papers cite research by other great figures, now long gone. But they were all his contemporaries.

Kudos to the publisher for collecting these papers into one book. ... Read more