Modern physics (I find “quantum physics” to be a misnomer, as the majority of what we call quantum physics could survive energy being continuous rather than discrete); in particular, the experiments I was able to dig up for things like particle spin weren’t particularly impressive. He doesn’t find mathematics particularly convincing, on account of the fact that mathematics are models. (To use local parlance, he finds the mathematical proofs to be confusing the map for the territory.)
Sure the math is a map, but it’s a lot easier sometimes to understand how a city is laid out by looking at a good map than by walking around it.
Your statement about quantum physics is as far as I can tell very wrong. If energy is continuous rather than discrete then you have the Rutherford model of the atom rather than the Bohr model, and there’s nothing to prevent atoms from all collapsing. More generally, energy confinement is generally taken to be the defining characteristic of quantum systems. If you have a convincing argument for why this is not true I would be very interested to hear it.
Any good modern physics textbook will go over the experiments. It sounds like essentially you want a physics textbook without the math? You could just read the book and skip the math? If you’re just interested in the experiments, you could also just get a good “modern physics” lab manual. That would give you a nice write-up of the experiments with minimal math, and they aren’t particularly hard to find.
I’m still not sure why you want this book or what it’s supposed to be about. I’m made a little nervous by someone who “doesn’t want something that presents the current beliefs as facts” and “doesn’t find mathematics particularly convincing.” If you’re looking for a book that is going to lay out the evidence for you for why modern physics is true in an effort to convince skeptics you may be looking for a while.
As for particle spin the relevant experiment is probably The Stern-Gerlach experiment. which is mentioned several times in Wikipedia’s article on spin.
The Bohr model is wrong. It’s just wrong in a useful way. And Rhydberg was working on an alternative model to explain exactly this when quantum mechanics came out; he abandoned it. I’m personally inclined to believe he was correct, but that’s not what I want to talk about.
The Stern-Gerlach Experiment was merely in agreement with particle spin; at best its existence, given that it predated particle spin theory, proves that particle spin adds up to normality.
He’s proficient in classical mechanics, and wants to grok quantum mechanics. In order to do so, he needs to follow it; not just learn the current state, but see why the current state is what it is, what experiments were performed, what ideas were discarded. I’m not terribly helpful in this regard on account of probably being a crank; my explanations tend to come with a large number of “buts” and alternative explanations that are more confusing than helpful.
In that case maybe chapters 1,2,4 and 6 of Volume 1 of Albert Messiah’s Quantum Mechanics? That gives you a pretty nice introduction and connects well with classical mechanics, without relying too much on the math.
I’m sure selections from other textbooks would work as well. For future reference, quantum mechanics is a subset of modern physics, so if you only want quantum mechanics, you should indicate that somehow.
Modern physics (I find “quantum physics” to be a misnomer, as the majority of what we call quantum physics could survive energy being continuous rather than discrete); in particular, the experiments I was able to dig up for things like particle spin weren’t particularly impressive. He doesn’t find mathematics particularly convincing, on account of the fact that mathematics are models. (To use local parlance, he finds the mathematical proofs to be confusing the map for the territory.)
Sure the math is a map, but it’s a lot easier sometimes to understand how a city is laid out by looking at a good map than by walking around it.
Your statement about quantum physics is as far as I can tell very wrong. If energy is continuous rather than discrete then you have the Rutherford model of the atom rather than the Bohr model, and there’s nothing to prevent atoms from all collapsing. More generally, energy confinement is generally taken to be the defining characteristic of quantum systems. If you have a convincing argument for why this is not true I would be very interested to hear it.
Any good modern physics textbook will go over the experiments. It sounds like essentially you want a physics textbook without the math? You could just read the book and skip the math? If you’re just interested in the experiments, you could also just get a good “modern physics” lab manual. That would give you a nice write-up of the experiments with minimal math, and they aren’t particularly hard to find.
I’m still not sure why you want this book or what it’s supposed to be about. I’m made a little nervous by someone who “doesn’t want something that presents the current beliefs as facts” and “doesn’t find mathematics particularly convincing.” If you’re looking for a book that is going to lay out the evidence for you for why modern physics is true in an effort to convince skeptics you may be looking for a while.
As for particle spin the relevant experiment is probably The Stern-Gerlach experiment. which is mentioned several times in Wikipedia’s article on spin.
The Bohr model is wrong. It’s just wrong in a useful way. And Rhydberg was working on an alternative model to explain exactly this when quantum mechanics came out; he abandoned it. I’m personally inclined to believe he was correct, but that’s not what I want to talk about.
The Stern-Gerlach Experiment was merely in agreement with particle spin; at best its existence, given that it predated particle spin theory, proves that particle spin adds up to normality.
He’s proficient in classical mechanics, and wants to grok quantum mechanics. In order to do so, he needs to follow it; not just learn the current state, but see why the current state is what it is, what experiments were performed, what ideas were discarded. I’m not terribly helpful in this regard on account of probably being a crank; my explanations tend to come with a large number of “buts” and alternative explanations that are more confusing than helpful.
In that case maybe chapters 1,2,4 and 6 of Volume 1 of Albert Messiah’s Quantum Mechanics? That gives you a pretty nice introduction and connects well with classical mechanics, without relying too much on the math.
I’m sure selections from other textbooks would work as well. For future reference, quantum mechanics is a subset of modern physics, so if you only want quantum mechanics, you should indicate that somehow.