Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

George W Mackey
Dover Publications
9780486435176
0-486-43517-2

Designed for students familiar with abstract mathematical concepts but possessing little knowledge of physics, this text focuses on generality and careful formulation rather than problem-solving. Its author,.

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a member of the distinguished National Academy of Science, based this graduate-level text on the course he taught at Harvard University.Opening chapters on classical mechanics examine the laws of particle mechanics; generalized coordinates and differentiable manifolds; oscillations, waves, and Hilbert space; and statistical mechanics. A survey of quantum mechanics covers the old quantum theory; the quantum-mechanical substitute for phase space; quantum dynamics and the Schrdinger equation; the canonical "quantization" of a classical system; some elementary examples and original discoveries by Schrdinger and Heisenberg; generalized coordinates; linear systems and the quantization of the electromagnetic field; and quantum-statistical mechanics.The final section on group theory and quantum mechanics of the atom explores basic notions in the theory of group representations; perturbations and the group theoretical classification of eigenvalues; spherical symmetry and spin; and the n-electron atom and the Pauli exclusion principle.