2 comments about A Modern Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Oxford Master Series in Statistical, Computational, and Theoretical Physics).

1. This book is short and to the point. The author has a good sense for the heart of the subject and how to present it in an efficient way. I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to either a.) learn the meat of QFT quickly or b.) wants a good reference which quickly reviews the most important parts of QFT. Since the technical details are important, I would highly recommend using this book in conjunction with a book with more technical details like the one by Peskin and Schroeder. (However, this book does have a lot of good information for its size.) Reading this book will help catalyze your understanding of the details in a more technical book.



2. This book presents the basics of QFT in a form that is very understandable. The author starts by presenting Lie algebra, which is used to justify spinors. A spinor Lagrangian then creates the Dirac equation. This approach makes the Dirac equation seem as natural as the Maxwell equation. I have previously seen two other books that took the approach of taking Schrodinger's equation and relativity and mashing the two together using Pauli matrices as glue. That never sat well with me and I was glad to see some justification. The clear, consistent, modern notation was a great help - I have seen other books that mix Einstein notation with bold-face 4-vectors using dot products, etc. I also found it helpful to have a concise book to introduce the concepts without getting bogged down in examples with equations spanning the entire page (this book does however have examples at the end of the chapters).
   
   The next chapters introduce quantization, perturbation theory, non-abelian theories, etc. I only got through half the book as it was just some summer reading for me, but paging through the latter half makes me look forward to having the time to finish it.

5 comments about Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism.

1. From time to time I ask people if there's been anything better than Feyman's "Lectures in Physics," and the answer is generally no, that's about all there is...
   
   Seems to me this beautiful book is at least the start of the current generation's canonical physics text set.



2. For those of us who were fascinated by Feynman's presentation of the vector potential field A, this book is irresistable. Mead tries to build the foundations of electricity and magnetism anew, and does a fascinating job of it.
   
   There is a lot of history and historiography mixed in with this short book, but I myself find that fascinating. If you're interested in how the currents of thought might have eddied, or where key suggestions were missed, or what from Einstein may have been underappreciated, you'll enjoy this side of the book.
   
   All that said, this book is chewy, and does only a mild amount of hand-holding in walking through the math. This is NOT anybody's first book of mathematical physics - but if you have enjoyed reading books by (e.g.) Feynmann, Misner/Thorne/Wheeler, Herb Kroemer, Andy Grove, Morse/Feshbach, Francon, Ichimaru, Khinchin, Papoulis, Polya, Sapriel, or Wiener, you're part of the natural audience for this book. If you liked "The Elegant Universe" you may love this book (and find some common themes), but this book is more mathematically demanding. On the other hand this is no mere tome, and does not require more than undergraduate competence.
   
   I would have liked to see more visualization aids - some of the concepts in this formulation lend themselves very well to a visual presentation. I'm going to be rereading this book, and I'm really looking forward to expository textbooks which may follow this line of presentation.
   
   If you're in doubt, buy this - it's challenging, but very broad and brilliant, and is not only about electrodynamics.



3. This is an unusual book and not an easy one to review.
   Perhaps the best starting place is the publisher's summary:
   
   [BEGIN PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY (from the book's back cover)]
   
   "In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics---collective electrodynamics---that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electron directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.)"
   
   "The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however,that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same---that electromagnetic phenomena are direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views this as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensive manner.''
   
   [END PUBLISHER's SUMMARY]
   
   It was this summary that persuaded me to order, sight unseen, this small (132 pages) but relatively inexpensive book to read on vacation. I didn't expect a lot from it, but I hoped that it might furnish some new insights. I was very disappointed that I learned nothing of substance from it.
   
   Indeed, I think that the above summary borders on false advertising. The book does not convincingly obtain classical electrodynamics from accepted quantum mechanical principles nor from experiments to which "Maxwell had no access". Its motivation is presented in such a vague and sloppy way that I regard it as yet one more of the endless accumulation of dreary papers which Pauli, in a famous remark, characterized as "not even wrong", i.e., too vague to be meaningful.
   
   The book only sketchily describes the "experiments that tell us about the electron directly". These are experiments with superconducting coils, which reveal not the behavior of individual electrons, but behavior of a system of a large number of electrons coupled in poorly understood ways (hence the "collective" in the book's title). Most of the book's development is based on just one experimental fact---that the magnetic flux of a superconducting loop is quantized, i.e., the flux can take on only values which are a constant multiple of integers. The book views such a system as a primitive system "having only one degree of freedom".
   
   Before proceeding to sketch the book's main argument, I have to make some mathematical remarks. It is well known that classical electrodynamics can be plausibly developed starting with just one mathematical object---the four-potential A, which is a 1-form on four-dimensional Minkowski space. The electromagnetic field tensor F, a 2-form, is the differential of the potential 1-form: F = dA. It would be too difficult to give precise definitions here, but they can be found in my book *Relativistic Electrodynamics and Differential Geometry* and many other places. The 4-current J is then defined as (or, from a more physical point of view, assumed to be) the codifferential (covariant divergence) of the field tensor. This mathematical structure is equivalent to Maxwell's equations.
   
   In summary, from any physical situation in which a 1-form
   on Minkowski space appears naturally, one can plausibly recover much of the mathematical structure of classical electrodynamics. For example, if within the logical structure of thermodynamics there were a naturally occurring 1-form on Minkowski space, one might claim to "derive" electrodynamics from thermodynamics by identifying this "natural" thermodynamic 1-form with the electromagnetic potential A.
   
   The only problem would be if the thermodynamic definition of A were somehow in physical conflict with the electrodynamic definition. But if A should be an unmeasurable quantity within thermodynamics, then this problem would not exist.
   
   The essence of Mead's argument is that within quantum mechanics, there is a naturally occurring 1-form on three-dimensional space with the property that integrating it over a superconducting loop gives the phase change of the "wave function" of the loop, which must be a constant multiple of an integer. Also, integrating the space part of the four-potential 1-form A over a loop gives the magnetic flux threading the loop, which for a superconducting loop is observed to be a constant multiple of an integer. This suggests identifying the "phase change" 1-form with a constant multiple of the space part of A.
   
   Later the full A is recovered by hand-waving analogies. In my opinion, the main problem with his argument is that his construction of the "phase change" 1-form is so vague, sloppy, and problematic that it is "not even wrong".
   
   Another difficulty is that the electrodynamic potential 1-form
   has special properties which may or may not be possessed by Mead's "phase change" 1-form, a point which Mead does not address. Since there seems no way to experimentally determine Mead's "phase change" 1-form independently of electromagnetic measurements, his identification of the "phase change" 1-form
   with a constant multiple of the electrodynamic 1-form seems physically sterile.
   
   I cannot point out the precise difficulties with his construction without using symbols which are unavailable here.
   A more extensive review on my website gives the mathematical details of some of the problems with it.
   
   Is there anything of interest in the book?
   Well, some may find of interest an 11-page "Personal Preface" describing, among other things, the author's relationship with and impressions of Richard Feynman. Mead was an undergraduate student of Feynman and later his colleague at Caltech.
   
   I have mixed feelings about these.
   His reminiscences sound sincere, but also seem to me to have a
   flavor of name-dropping. For example, he discusses a "sticking point" in his development of electrodynamics which held him up for years, and informs us that "it is resolved in this treatment in a way that Feynman would have liked". It seems presumptuous to claim to know what a great, deceased physicist would have thought about this work.



4. As of today, Thanksgiving, 22November2007, there are ten reviews of this book posted. None of them, nor all of them together, is adequate. I urge prospective buyers to read the American Spectator interview with Carver Mead. The Spectator has taken down its copy, but a few are still available online. Google "Carver Mead Collective Electrodynamics Spectator Interview", withoug quotation marks.
   
   One reviewer says here that Mead's arguments against Bohr and Heisenberg were advanced during the 1930's, and were refuted. I wonder if he understands anything anyone has said. The Spectator writes,
   
   "Central to Mead's rescue project are a series of discoveries inconsistent with the prevailing conceptions of quantum mechanics. One was the laser. As late as 1956, Bohr and Von Neumann, the paragons of quantum theory, arrived at the Columbia laboratories of Charles Townes, who was in the process of describing his invention. With the transistor, the laser is one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century. Designed into every CD player and long distance telephone connection, lasers today are manufactured by the billions. At the heart of laser action is perfect alignment of the crests and troughs of myriad waves of light. Their location and momentum must be theoretically knowable. But this violates the holiest canon of Copenhagen theory: Heisenberg Uncertainty. Bohr and Von Neumann proved to be true believers in Heisenberg's rule. Both denied that the laser was possible. When Townes showed them one in operation, they retreated artfully.
   
   "In Collective Electrodynamics, Mead cites nine other experimental discoveries, from superconductive currents to masers, to Bose-Einstein condensates predicted by Einstein but not demonstrated until 1995. These discoveries of large-scale, coherent quantum phenomena all occurred after Bohr's triumph over Einstein."
   
   When all the waves of all the atoms in a system are synchronized, the system is coherent. Scientists during the 1930's were not able to synchronize the waves. When all atoms are synchronized, matter is a wave. Mead proves this by experiment. When the waves are not synchronized, they interfere with each other. Perhaps it is true, what some reviewers say here, that Mead does not really develop a complete theory of electrodynamics; but he does demonstrate conclusively from actual experiments his main contention:
   
   Bohr taught the correspondence principle, which says that as quantum numbers get large, the behavior approximates a Newtonian mechanical system. But modern experiments show that as quantum numbers get large, behavior diverges more and more from a mechanical system. What large quantum numbers develop into is an electrodynamical system. Under that paradigm, if the system is coherent, Mead has a perfect solution to Schrodinger's wave equation; and the uncertainty principle disappears.



5. I found out about this book through reading Milo Wolff's work. This book places some of Wolff's ideas into a rigorous mathematical framework. The last chapter of Collective Electrodynamics provides an amazing answer to a question that I've been wondering about for years - "How and why do quantum jumps take place?" Just for this, it was worth purchasing this book.
   
   This book and Wolff's books provide the best explanation of quantum physics that I have ever read. After reading these works, one sees that quantum physics is not mysterious and mystical at all. It is actually very reasonable.

1 comments about Atoms, Radiation, and Radiation Protection, 2nd Edition.

1. This book was most useful to me in calculating dose, it has a good breadth of the subject matter and will purchase my own copy...currently using advisor's copy.

No comments about Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems.

2 comments about Strategic Cost Reduction: Leading Your Hospital to Success.

1. As a former hospital administrator and now a networker with C Level Executives throughout the nation, I am keenly aware of the cost reduction pressures which hospital executives in the healthcare industry face. Rindler's approach to a principle-based culture creation around controlling costs is exactly what today's healthcare professionals at all levels need to understand and utilize in their respective money management decisions. The tools outlined in the book also address the next level of implementation as well, a feature which is unique in today's service oriented industry. I highly suggest this material.



2. Michael Rindler is a visionary. If you are in healthcare, read this book.
   C. Ellis. Marietta, GA

2 comments about Theory of Elastic Stability: Analysis and Sensitivity.

1. The most up-to-date and lucid text in a very large field of study.
   Incorporates nearly all of the original British and Harvard schools of study.
   Has fundamentally interesting problem sets where there have not been many before.



2. This is a good elastic stability theory book. Good involved examples in text that require some background in TPE and beam and plate theory. In a few places large chunks of derivations are left to the reader to accept or fill in the blanks. Translation to English makes it hard to follow at times.

No comments about Fundamentals of Power Semiconductor Devices.

4 comments about Semiconductor Optics.

1. I want to look at this book



2. don't buy this boo



3. This book covers the basics of optical processes in semiconductors from an experimentalist perspective. Therefore the theory is a bit light, but all the concepts are there as well as many useful insights. An excellent introduction to the subject.



4. This book is a very comprehensive treatment of semiconductor optics. At the begining, I was hesitant to buy it. So I borrowed an older edition from our library. I was so much impressed, that I bought my own copy. A colleague of mine is so much impressed by the lucidity of arguments in the book, that he reads a passage from it for us at work every once in a while. This book spans the breadth of the subject from basic the fundamental concepts of optics and solid state physics to the more advanced such as semiconductor Bloch equations. I highly recommend this book. If I teach semiconductor optics at any time, this would be the textbook that I will use (by the way, it has excellent problems at the end of each chapter.)

5 comments about Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes.

1. This is a very good introductory book for all those who are thinking of doing research in the (constantly evolving) field of carbon nanotubes. It is a very didactic book and contains essential information which are very useful. Since it was written in an early stage of the research on carbon nanotubes, some of its material may look outdated, but is simply basic information over which the present knowledge on carbon nanotubes was built. I have used the information from the book heavily in my PhD. thesis, on which I am currently working.

   The book begins from the very basics: a review of the types of carbon bonds and hybridizations. Being a theorist, one of my favorite chapters is the one on the early tight-binding calculations for the electronic structure of carbon nanotubes. These calculations are immensely useful for understanding the electronic structure of carbon nanotubes. It also presents a review of the elastic properties of carbon nanotubes and of the phonon properties, as well as the group theory involved in understanding carbon nanotubes' properties.

   However, this field could not have progressed without the huge mass of experimental work done in the area. Therefore, the book contains lots of material on the experimental aspects of research in the area, like synthesis of carbon nanotubes, Raman scattering (a whole chapter is devoted to the subject) and transport experiments. This probably is the part in which the material is most outdated, since new experimental techniques and new experiments are always being devised and performed. However, the experiments described in the book provide a good starting point for having a general idea of what has been going on in the experimental area.

   Many topics, like Coulomb blockade, Luttinger liquid behavior and mechanical effects on the electronic structure are lacking since only two years since the launching of the book were enough to allow these topics to be discovered or become of interest in research. Nevertheless, the books remains (and perhaps will always be) basic reference and an almost mandatory citation in articles published on the subject in the most important scientific research magazines in the world.




2. This book gives a detailed treatment of the theory behind the physical properties of carbon nanotubes, and is written by some of the leading scientists in the field. However it cannot be recommended as an introduction to the subject of carbon nanotubes, as much of the mathematics will be beyond those without specialist knowledge of solid state physics. Also the illustrations are very poor quality. In its favour, the book is quite cheap.



3. This book of renowned scholars from MIT and from the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo provides a systematic description of the structure of carbon nanotubes and of their physical nature. The volume starts from background information on the structure and properties of graphite and related carbon materials. Based on the geometric structure of carbon nanotubes, the electronic properties and phonon dispersion relations are explained on simple physical models. The book starts from the first principles and through the physical models explains and interprets numerous experiments.

   After twobackground chapters the book continues with nine specialized topics. The geometrical structure of nanotubes is described and linked to their electronic features. A comprehensive article deals with synthesis of carbon nanotubes. The following chapter concentrates on quantization produced by confinement of electrons in one-dimensional nanotubes. Physical connections of carbon nanotubes are then discussed - their geometry and electrical conductance. Transport properties of nanotubes are analyzed in the next chapter, using quantum transport in a one-dimensional wire. Phonon modes of nanotubes follow and are treated by the zone-folding technique. Raman spectra of nanotubes are then surveyed. The volume ends with a chapter on elastic properties of nanotubes.

   The book is a well organized systematic treatise that should be enjoyed by any researcher in the field as well as by graduate students. Theories and experiments are truly organically linked in the text and this is its unique feature. The volume has 259+xii pages, lists 238 references, and also includes some useful Fortran computer codes for geometry generations. The book is published by Imperial College Press and distributed by World Scientific Publ. Co.

   ISBN: 1-86094-093-5




4. The book is very well organized but it requires a previous background on the subject. However, there are other book like "Atomic and Electronic structure of Solids" by E. Kaxiras and "Electronic Structure of Solids, The physics of the chemical bond" by Harrison that may provide all required knowledge!
   What I disliked most is that are issues left open. For example, the theory about the conductivity of carbon and CNTs is very limited.
   I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in the CNT structures.



5. The quality of the book is high and the delievery was fast enough for what I was looking for.

1 comments about Solid State Physics for Engineering and Materials Science.

1. This is a thorough and well presented book. It starts with an introduction to crystals and quantum physics so it you get all the main tools to understand solid state physics. As a matter of fact the chapters on quantum physics are exceptional. True it's somewhat a summary of any quantum physics book but it's a very good one. I used it for a one term intensive course on both quantum physics and solid state physics angling towards semiconductor physics and transistors. The author provides concise and precise explanations plus all the mathematical progression. That's where it gets slightly cumbersome and the main reason I wouldn't recommend it for self study. You pretty much need to understand the reasoning behind those equations or you won't know what it's all about. As a reference book it's wonderful because everything is there. There's no other book that deals so well with the basics tools of quantum and semiconductor physics. My only complaint is that it lacks a final chapter on transistors(both bipolar and Mos would be appreciated) that would make it a truly phenomenal book.