N.2 History and wish list

• June 15, 2012. Version 5.55 alpha. Added hyperspheres to the notations. Finished {A.8} and {D.22}. Rewrote {A.9}. These may need some more editing. The problems of the previous version with the index have been fixed. Various small problems fixed.

• June 11, 2012. Version 5.54 alpha. Added the screened Poisson equation to {D.2}. Rewrote {A.8} on positive unique ground states and added an explanatory figure. Needs more work. Added an entry on spherical coordinates to the notations. Cleaned up and expanded {D.14} a bit. Editing of {A.41}. Improved the values of the physical constants in the notations. Improved alignment of inline math for Internet Explorer. Took inline equations apart and added tuned relation symbols. Created a better key image for key points. Improved appearance of the key point and question lists. Bolded math labels in the notations and added some space behind the labels. In the web version symbols are no longer on preceding lines. In the pdf, links are now enclosed by non-offensive thin grey lines. Urls are now enclosed by non-offensive thin black lines. In html, very long words, including all 14 characters long or more. will now hyphenate if needed. That includes one-di­mensional, two-di­mensional, three-di­mensional, four-di­mensional, $n$-di­mensional. accom­plishments, acknowl­edgments, anti­commutators, anti­symmetri­cally, anti­symmetr­ization, ... Also in html, stupid line breaks at inline math images should no longer occur.

  Please note that surely ten thousands of small changes have been made. Some are bound to have introduced a problem, especially in formatting. I do think the esthetics of the web pages has been improved tremendously. Even more so for Internet Explorer, I guess. (But I use linux.)

  Added note: the zipped version of this date has some minor format corrections, but also an error fix in {D.22} (which still needs more work.)

  Added note: unfortunately, now the index looks like hell.

• May 4, 2012. Version 5.53 alpha. Corrections and extensions to fundamental forces, section 7.5.2. Editing of {A.41}.

• Apr. 25, 2012. Version 5.52 alpha. Editing of {A.41}. Corrected figures 3.3 and N.2. Very minor changes the next day.

• Feb. 15, 2012. Version 5.51 alpha. Improved discussion of field operators in {A.15.9}. Added a brief explan­ation of the Casimir force, {A.23.4}. Noted that pure particle and pure anti­particle states preserve norm, {D.32} and {A.15.9}. Corrected that time reversal is anti­unitary, not unitary, {A.19.2} Greatly expanded the discussion of the Fourier inversion theorem and Parseval, {A.26}. Added separate derivation of the Green’s function of the Poisson equation, {D.2}. Added an example of varia­tional calculus, {A.2}. Added fields to classical Lagrangian and Hamiltonian analysis, {A.1.5}. Added a new addendum on forces by particle exchange, {A.22}. While already big, this one will need to be expanded in a later version. Added that lone systems have definite spin and parity to chapter 7.3. Added draft explan­ation of the OPEP to {A.41}.

• Dec. 15, 2011. Version 5.50 alpha. Further rewrites and correction of a couple of glaring errors in Quantum Field Theory in a Nanoshell {A.15}. I think this addendum is now much better than it was originally. Removed inter­pretation of the photon wave function again. Rewrites in 8.7

• Dec. 12, 2011. Version 5.49 alpha. Corrected previous history item. The Dirac $\gamma$ matrices are now defined, {A.35}. Rest mass is now just $m$, not $m_0$. Added note about Majorana neutrinos to {A.43}. Added reference for gauge symmetries in {A.19.5}. Put in some disclaimers in {A.41}. Added an inter­pretation of the photon wave function. There is now a much needed draft rewrite of Quantum Field Theory in a Nanoshell {A.15}.

• Nov. 18, 2011. Version 5.48 alpha. Added a complete comparison of the mixed dipole and quadrupole gamma decays, figure 14.63. Minor corre­sponding rewrites. Nowadays NuDat 2 no longer tells you that you are requesting too much data and simply gives you partial data. That explained why M1 and E2 transitions stopped so quickly. It has been corrected. Added a description of neutrinos, {A.43}.

• Nov. 14, 2011. Version 5.47 alpha. Corrected the definition of “interval” in special relativity to be author-dependent. Due to a program error, in the comparison of gamma decay with data the program was actually selecting the nuclei to be as much the same as possible, instead of as much different as possible. It has been corrected. Not that it makes much of a visual difference. The text has been rewritten a bit too. In the “cage of Faraday” proposal, stupid me forgot about measured electro­magnetic moments. That seems to kill off Meisner pretty well. It has been rewritten.

• Nov. 9, 2011. Version 5.46 alpha. Modified the “cage of Faraday” proposal a bit.

• Nov. 8, 2011. Version 5.45 alpha. Added the cage-of-Faraday proposal, chapter 14.20.6.

• Nov. 8, 2011. Version 5.44 alpha. Added an example without charge independence to isospin to clarify the need for it. Corrected a typo in a formula and minor editing. Added examples to E0 internal conversion and edited the text a bit in chapter 14.20.7. Added a comparison of the single-particle theory of gamma decay with experi­mental data to chapter 14.20.5.

• Oct. 25, 2011. Version 5.43 alpha. Further editing of isospin. Seems to be OK for now. Some minor editing of quantum field theory.

• Oct. 17, 2011. Version 5.42 alpha. Rewrote the discussion for isospin. The original discussion was only defensible for a very crude model of the deuteron. The current discussion is better but needs more work.

• Oct. 12, 2011. Version 5.41 alpha. I finally got around to taking out some very dubious statements on gamma decay in 14.20 that have been bothering me for years. The relief is tremendous. I even managed to find a ballpark for the “missing” E0 transition.

• Oct. 03, 2011. Version 5.40 alpha. Some minor corrections/improvements on emission of radiation.

• Sep. 30, 2011. Version 5.39 alpha. Some minor corrections/improvements on emission of radiation. Being doing other stuff.

• Sep. 26, 2011. Version 5.38 alpha. Adds a table of hydrogen radial correction factors. Deals better with the magnetic transitions of non­relativistic hydrogen.

• Sep. 16, 2011. Version 5.37 alpha. Minor changes and corrections in the previous items. Expanded the table with Weisskopf/Moszkowski correction factors.

• Sep. 12, 2011. Version 5.36 alpha. Minor changes in section 8.4. Added addendum {A.25} on multipole transitions, with corre­sponding derivations and notes {D.43}, {N.13}, and {N.14}. Took out claim from Wikipedia that the 21 cm line is highly forbidden and replaced it with low energy.

• Aug. 10, 2011. Version 5.35 alpha. Completed addenda A.23 and A.24 Added section 8.4.

• Aug. 5, 2011. Version 5.34 alpha. Significant rewrite of section 7.4.3. Doing the electric transitions first really helps getting rid of all the ifs and buts. Some rewrite of addendum N.10. Improved the discussion of two-photon zero angular momentum in section 7.4.4. On second thought, brining up the alpha particle in N.10 was a bad idea. The worst part is that the alpha decay has an exponential dependence on angular momentum due to tunneling. That is less of an issue in beta decay, but then there is the blasted neutrino. So the particle is now a spinless non­relativistic photon. Gee. The Lorentz gauge is now the Lorenz gauge. The Coulomb gauge is no longer misre­presented. Rewrote addenda A.23 on second quant­ization and A.24 on quantum derivation of sponta­neous emission. They are incom­plete; I am posting drafts since I have to go to work anyway.

• July 27, 2011. Version 5.33 alpha. The electric and magnetic fields are now ${\cal E}$ and ${\cal B}$. Hopefully. Based on [23, p. 240] and a similar message in a physics news group, took the bold step of defining a “type 2 wave function” for the photon. Some rewrite of addendum A.14. corre­Spondingly added notes A.21 and D.36 on the photon wave function and its derivation. They are incom­plete; I am posting drafts since I have to go to work anyway.

• July 20, 2011. Version 5.32 alpha. Corrected statement on parity of the photon. Whatever I learn on the web does not hold up well. Added addendum A.20 on the spin of vector particles.

• July 18, 2011. Version 5.31 alpha. Rewrote note physics of the fundamental commutators. Added an addendum with Maxwell's wave equations. Added the Klein-Gordon equation. Or at least, added a separate addendum for it, to eventually replace scattered discussions of it elsewhere.

• July 12, 2011. Version 5.30 alpha. Normalized appendices to allow question lists in them. Moved WKB to an addendum. Minor rewrites in time evolution. Added missing links to derivations in relativity.

• July 05, 2011. Version 5.29 alpha. Moved derivations from addenda to derivations. Added deuteron data from Argonne v18. Slight rewrites for relativity. Relocated some addenda. Cleaned up adiabatic theorem addendum and improved derivation. The Heisenberg formul­ation has been moved to an addendum. There are now direct links to the animated figures on the web in the pdf. The unsteady particle in the pipe has been animated. Made J the symbol of generic angular momentum, with much effort. In 3D scattering, D is a private symbol of Griffiths according to his book on elementary particles, not a standard symbol as I thought. It has been removed. Rewrote intro to two-state systems. Changed action in relativistic case to be “stationary,” rather than “least.” Dropped claim obtained from Internet of no population inversion for semi­conductor lasers. Gee. Major rewrite of the first half of time evolution.

• June 2, 2011. Version 5.28 alpha. Draft rewrite of the section on modeling the deuteron. Draft rewrite of the addendum on nuclear forces.

• May 30, 2011. Version 5.27 alpha. Inverted history list. Textual formulae make less use of images. Textual super­scripts like powers and degree signs have been joined to their root with nobr tags. Made table formatting more consistent. Line length in html (at recommended browser width) has been reduced a bit. It is still longer than in the pdf version, but about the same as Lamport’s LaTeX book. Maximum formulae, table, and figure lengths are now consistent in html and equal to the recommended browser width. This required a 3% reduction in displayed formulae size. Table sizes must be explicitly set due to buggy L^ATEX2HTML code. Center environments have been replaced by centering to eliminate redundant space, usually after the caption. Fixed formatting problems in table of contents and lists of figures, tables. Pdf links to figures and tables do now show the actual thing. Advanced angular momentum has been made a separate chapter. HTML table of contents has been cleaned up. HTML truncation of the two electron Clebsch Gordon figure has been fixed. Actually, it has NOT been fixed. :() A new attempt has been implemented. Expanded the description of fundamental forces in the section on particle exchange. Draft rewrite of the first two sections of nuclei. Made the section on nuclear forces a more limited addendum. Also eliminated a bad mistake in it.

• Apr. 25, 2011. Version 5.26 alpha. Some further minor rewrites of the section on index notation. Spell check and minor rewrites of the relativity chapter in general.

• Apr. 18, 2011. Version 5.25 alpha. Rewrote section on index notation, added an addendum about it.

• Mar. 14, 2011. Version 5.24 alpha. Bisected addenda on quantum field theory and perturb­ation theory. Started just a bit cleaning up the chapter on nuclei. One tiny step at a time.

• Mar. 14, 2011. Version 5.23 alpha. Brought structure into the 124 notes. Relocated the chapter “Additional Topics” in the addenda notes. Made relativity a separate Part. Minor rewrites in the intro to nuclei.

• Mar. 8, 2011. Version 5.22 alpha. Noted and fixed a blunder on cosmic redshift. Sometimes I do not seem to think at all. Everyone else seems to make the same blunder??

• Mar. 7, 2011. Version 5.21 alpha. All remaining low-resolution bitmap graphics are gone. Spherical Hankel and Bessel functions have been taken out of the note on 3D scattering and given their own note. The same for the integral Schrödinger equation. The remaining note on 3D scattering has been given a much needed clean up. Some rewrites in the note on symmetries.

• Feb. 7, 2011. Version 5.20 alpha. Some changes in the section and note on conserv­ation laws and symmetries. A large fraction of the remaining low-resolution bitmap graphics has been replaced by higher quality vector graphics. The note on special relativity has been turned into a chapter.

• Jan. 16, 2011. Version 5.19 alpha. Very minor changes in the section on conserv­ation laws and symmetries.

• Jan. 3, 2011. Version 5.18 alpha. Revised section on conserv­ation laws and symmetries. Slight cosmetic improvements in some figures.

• Nov. 30, 2010. Version 5.17 alpha. Moved hydrogen and helium to the end of the periodic table; I simply got tired of saying “except hydrogen” and “except helium.” Rewrote the subsection on ionic conduction.

• Nov. 16, 2010. Version 5.16 alpha. Second and for now final version of the subsection on typical metals and insulators.

• Nov. 12, 2010. Version 5.15 alpha. First rewrite of the subsection on typical metals and insulators.

• Nov. 1, 2010. Version 5.14 alpha. Various minor rewrites in the chapter on macroscopic systems.

• Oct. 11, 2010. Version 5.13 alpha. Technical modifi­cations to allow links in the pdf. Many people seem to use the pdf for reading instead of the web pages.

• Oct. 4, 2010. Version 5.12 alpha. Various minor rewrites, including for subsection 6.22.5. A number of poor phrasings pointed out by Ramaswami Sastry Vedam corrected.

• Sep. 13, 2010. Version 5.11 alpha. Main change is the addition of subsection 6.22.5 giving an introduction to the band theory of three-di­mensional crystals.

• Aug. 30, 2010. Version 5.10 alpha. Added spectra of actual materials to the section on crystal momentum. Fixed an erroneous statement about the presen­tation of spectra. Fixed an error where spins were listed, but not included in the transfor­mation in the section on conserv­ation laws and symmetries.

• Aug. 23, 2010. Version 5.09 alpha. Rewrites of p-n junction and transistor.

• Aug. 9, 2010. Version 5.08 alpha. Third law moved to notes. Edits in the chapter on macroscopic systems. Draft proof of the Onsager relations added and immediately removed. Gee. It will not be back.

• July 28, 2010. Version 5.07 alpha. Better description of the third law. Some rewrites and error corrections in thermo­electrics.

• July 23, 2010. Version 5.06 alpha. Some rewrites and error corrections in thermo­electrics.

• July 19, 2010. Version 5.05 alpha. Some error corrections in thermo­electrics and a discussion of the Onsager relations added.

• July 16, 2010. Version 5.04 alpha. Some rewrites and error corrections.

• July 13, 2010. Version 5.03 alpha. Various rewrites and error corrections. Also a new periodic table.

• June 6, 2010. Version 5 alpha. Lots of spelling and grammar corrections, minor rewrites, and additions of summaries during teaching a 3 hour DIS on “quantum literacy.” Added a chapter on nuclei. Added sections and tables on angular momentum of shells. Alpha decay has been moved to the new chapter on nuclei. Forbidden decays are now included. Various program improvements/tuning. Corrected “effective” mass (for a two-body system) into “reduced.” Added a chapter on macroscopic systems to Part II. Much of this chapter has been scavenged from Part III. It is supposed to provide some more practical knowledge in various areas. It was inspired by the DIS mentioned above, which showed you cannot do much of Part III in a single semester. The semi­conductor discussion in the chapter is all new.

• March 22, 2009. Version 4.2 alpha. Spin matrices for systems greater than spin one half are now discussed. Classical Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics is now covered in a note. Special relativity is now covered in a note. There is now a derivation of the hydrogen dipole selection rules and more extensive discussion of forbidden transitions. Angular momentum and parity conserv­ation in transitions are now discussed. The Gamow theory data are now corrected for nuclear versus atomic mass. There is no perceivable difference, however. The alignment bars next to the electro­magnetic tables in the web version should have been eliminated.

• Jan. 1, 2009. Version 4.0 alpha reorders the book into two parts to achieve a much better book structure. The changed thinking justifies a new version. Parts of the lengthy preface have been moved to the notes. The background sections have been combined in their own chapter to reduce distraction in part II. There is now a derivation of effective mass in a note. A few more commutators were added to the reference. There is a note on Fourier transforms and the Parseval equality. The stupid discussion of group velocity has been replaced by a better (even more stupid?) one. Two of the gif animations were erroneous (the non­delta function tunneling and the rapid drop potential) and have been corrected. High resolution versions of the animations have been added. Time-dependent perturb­ation theory is now concisely covered. WKB theory is now covered. Alpha decay is now included. The adiabatic theorem is now covered. Three-di­mensional scattering is now covered, in a note. Fixed a mistyped shelf number energy in the thermo chapter. The derivations of the Dirac equation and the gyromagnetic ratio of electron spin have been moved to the notes. Note D.72 now gives the full derivation of the expec­tation Lorentz force. The direction of the magnetic field in the figure for Maxwell’s fourth law was corrected. A section on electro­static solutions has been added. The description on electrons in magnetic fields now includes the diamagnetic contribution. The section on Stern-Gerlach was moved to the electro­magnetic section where it belongs. Electron split experi­ments have been removed completely. There is now a full coverage of time-independent small perturb­ation theory, including the hydrogen fine structure. Natural frequency is now angular frequency. Gee. The Planck formula is now the Planck-Einstein relation. The Euler identity is now the apparently more common Euler formula. Black body as noun, blackbody as compound adjective.

• Jan. 19, 2009. Version 4.1 alpha. There is now a discussion of the Heisenberg picture. The horribly written, rambling, incoherent, section on nearly-free electrons that has been bothering me for years has been rewritten into two much better sections. There is now a discussion on the quant­ization of the electro­magnetic field, including photon spin and sponta­neous emission. The Rayleigh formula is now derived. The perturb­ation expansion of eigen­functions now refers to Rellich’s book to show that it really works for degenerate eigen­functions.

• July 14, 2008. Version 3 beta 4.2 expands the section on unsteady two-state systems to include a full discussion of “time-dependent perturb­ation theory,” read emission and absorption of radiation. Earlier versions just had a highly condensed version since I greatly dislike the derivations in typical textbooks that are full of non­trivial assumptions for which no justifi­cation is, or can be, given at all.

• July 2, 2008. Version 3 beta 4.1 adds a new, “advanced,” chapter on basic and quantum thermo­dynamics. An advanced section on the fundamental ideas underlying quantum field theory has also been added. The discussion of the lambda transition of helium versus Bose-Einstein condens­ation has been rewritten to reflect the considerable uncertainty. Unique­ness has been added to the note on the hydrogen molecular ion ground state properties. Added a missing $2\pi$ in the Rayleigh-Jeans formula.

• April 7, 2008. Version 3 beta 4 adds key points and exercises added to chapter 4, with the usual rewrites to improve clarity. The Dirichlet complete­ness proof of the Fourier modes has been moved from the solution manual to the notes. The actual expressions for the hydrogen molecular ion integrals are now given in the note. The London force derivation has been moved to the notes. The subsection of ferro­magnetism has been rewritten to more clearly reflect the uncertainty in the field, and a discussion of Hund’s rules added.

• Dec. 20, 2007. Version 3 beta 3.4 cleans up the format of the “notes.” No more need for loading an inter­minable web page of 64 notes all at the same time over your phone line to read 20 words. It also corrects a few errors, one important one pointed out by Johann Joss. It also also extends some further griping about correl­ation energy to all three web locations. You may surmise from the lack of progress that I have been installing Linux on my home PC. You are right.

• Sept. 9, 2007. Version 3 beta 3.3 mainly adds sections on solids, that have been combined with rewritten free and nearly-free electrons sections into a full chapter on solids. The rest of the old chapter on examples of multiple particle systems has been pushed back into the basic multiple particle systems chapter. A completely non­sensical discussion in a paragraph of the free-electron gas section was corrected; I cannot believe I have read over that several times. I probably was reading what I wanted to say instead of what I said. The alternative name “twilight terms” has been substituted for “exchange terms.” Many minor changes.

• July 19, 2007. Version 3 beta 3.2 adds a section on Hartree-Fock. It took forever. My main regret is that most of them who wasted my time in this major way are probably no longer around to be properly blasted. Writing a book on quantum mechanics by an engineer for engineers is a minefield of having to see through countless poor definitions and dubious explan­ations. It takes forever. In view of the fact that many of those physicist were probably supported by tax payers much of the time, it should not be such an absolute mess!

  There are some additions on Born-Oppenheimer and the varia­tional formul­ation that were in the Hartree-Fock section, but that I took out, since they seemed to be too general to be shoved away inside an appli­cation. Also rewrote section 5.7 and subsection 5.9.2 to be consistent, and in particular in order to have a single consistent notation. Zero point energy (the vacuum kind) is back. What the heck.

• May 21, 2007. An updated version 3 beta 3.1 to correct a poorly written subsection on quantum confinement for the particle in a pipe. Thanks to Swapnil Jain for pointing out the problem. I do not want people to get lost so early in the game, so I made it a priority correction. In general, I do think that the sections added later to the document are not of the same quality as the original with regard to writing style. The reason is simple. When I wrote the original, I was on a sabbatical and had plenty of time to think and rethink how it would be clearest. The later sections are written during the few spare hours I can dig up. I write them and put them in. I would need a year off to do this as it really should be done.

• May 5, 2007. There are now lists of key points and review questions for chapter 3. That makes it the 3 beta 3 version. Various other fixes, like spectral line broadening, Helium's refusal to take on electrons, and countless other less than ideal phrasings. And full solutions of the harmonic oscillator, spherical harmonics, and hydrogen wave function ODEs, Mandelshtam-Tamm energy-time uncertainty, (all in the notes.) A dice is now a die, though it sounds horrible to me. Zero point energy went out again as too speculative.

• April 2, 2007. There are now lists of key points and review questions for chapter 2. That makes it the 3 beta 2 version. So I guess the final beta version will be 3 beta 6. Various other fixes. I also added, probably unwisely, a note about zero point energy.

• Mid Feb.,2007. There are now lists of key points and review questions for chapter 1. Answers are in the new solution manual.

• Mid Jan., 2007. Added sections on confinement and density of states, a commutator reference, a section on unsteady perturbed two state systems, and an advanced chapter on angular momentum, the Dirac equation, the electro­magnetic field, and NMR. Fixed a dubious phrasing about the Dirac equation and other minor changes.

• Mid April, 2006. Various minor fixes. Also I changed the format from the “article” to the “book” style.

• Mid Feb., 2006. A new version was posted. Main differen­ces are correction of a number of errors and improved descriptions of the free-electron and band spectra. There is also a rewrite of the many worlds inter­pretation to be clearer and less preachy.

• May 11 2005. I got cold feet on immediately jumping into separation of variables, so I added a section on a particle in a pipe.

• May 4, 2005. A revised version was posted. I finally read the paper by Everett, III on the many worlds inter­pretation, and realized that I had to take the crap out of pretty much all my discussions. I also rewrote everything to try to make it easier to follow. I added the motion of wave packets to the discussion and expanded the one on Newtonian motion.

• Nov 27, 2004. A revised version was posted, fixing a major blunder related to a nasty problem in using classical spring potentials for more than a single particle. The fix required extensive changes. This version also added descriptions of how the wave function of larger systems is formed.

• Oct 24, 2004. The first version of this manuscript was posted.

Part I is a draft.

Part II is mostly in a fairly good shape. But there are a few recent additions that probably could do with another look. Of course, fairly good is not the same as good. Chapter 7 is poor.

In Part III various parts sure could do with a few more rewrites. For example, the thermo­dynamics chapter is quite embarrassing. The chapter on nuclei is an incom­plete absolute mess.

The shape of addenda and notes is pretty much like their root chapters.

Somewhat notably missing at this time:

1. Electron split experi­ments. Do engineers need it?? Some mention is now in the basic ideas chapter.
2. Quantum electro­dynamics. (The full relativistic theory.) Do engineers need it??
3. Density-functional theory.
4. Mössbauer effect.
5. Super­fluidity (but there is not really a microscopic theory.)
6. Super­conduc­tivity.