Highlights from Introducing Quantum Theory by J.P. McEvoy, Oscar Zárate

There was a time when I used to despise Physics. I still do not know the exact reason behind this feeling because I was much interest in Physics in general. Perhaps the mathematical questions of JEE put me off.

I picked this book thinking that it will have something related to Quantum Computing (I am pretty much new to this area of CS), but I was entirely wrong in my guess. This book is all about the greats of the Physics world in the first half of the 19th century and how quantum theory came into existence.

However, I must say, this book has not disappointed me. It was a fun refresher to the notions of Physics that I had last studied almost five years before. I had forgotten many of the theoretical concepts since my last class on the subject. However, as I started reading, my mind began unleashing the forgotten knowledge. I was pretty amused to see that I still remember many of the concepts, although not in great depth.

This book assumes that the reader has sufficient knowledge of secondary school Physics concepts, which may not be the case always. Though there are diagrams and illustrations to supplement the text, the level of the book sometimes feels too high for its title. The authors have not shied away for using complex equations and the explanations to the equations is also very detailed.

In my opinion, this book is an excellent introduction to Quantum Physics for people with a background in Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics. For others, it might be slightly heavy to digest.