Principles of Quantum Mechanics*

Publish and perish-Giordano Bruno Given the number of books that already exist on the subject of quantum mechanics, one would think that the public needs one more as much as it does, say, the latest version of the Table of Integers. But this does not deter me (as it didn't my predecessors) from trying to circulate my own version of how it ought to be taught. The approach to be presented here (to be described in a moment) was first tried on a group of Harvard under­ graduates in the summer of '76, once again in the summer of '77, and more recently at Yale on undergraduates ('77-'78) and graduates ('78-'79) taking a year-long course on the subject. In all cases the results were very satisfactory in the sense that the students seemed to have learned the subject well and to have enjoyed the presentation. It is, in fact, their enthusiastic response and encouragement that convinced me of the soundness of my approach and impelled me to write this book. The basic idea is to develop the subject from its postulates, after ad­ dressing some indispensable preliminaries.