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10 videos · 3 h 30 min
Lecture · MIT
MIT OpenCourseWare · Allan Adams · 2013
Allan Adams's MIT 8.04 lecture introduces the wavefunction as the fundamental description of a quantum system, states the probability rule and normalization, shows why a wave of definite momentum is equally likely to be found anywhere, and restates superposition and uncertainty in the language of wavefunctions. A university-level companion to Parts 1 to 3; expectation values arrive in his next lecture.
Lecture · MIT
MIT OpenCourseWare · Barton Zwiebach
Zwiebach asks which wavefunctions can be normalized at all and whether a normalized wavefunction stays normalized as time passes: the last paragraph of this section, done properly. It looks ahead to the Schrödinger equation of chapter 10.
Lecture · Oxford
University of Oxford · James Binney · 2009–10
The lecture from University of Oxford Quantum Mechanics (James Binney, 2009–10) that goes with Chapter 9. The whole course is in the Lecture Hall.
Course · MIT
MIT OpenCourseWare · Allan Adams · 2013
Allan Adams' celebrated course starts from superposition and the experimental facts, builds the wavefunction, operators and the Schrödinger equation, then tours scattering, hydrogen, identical particles and band structure before closing on entanglement and Bell's theorem. Calculus and a little linear algebra are enough to keep up.
Course · MIT
MIT OpenCourseWare · Barton Zwiebach · 2016
The same course rebuilt as 115 short segments of roughly ten to twenty minutes, each devoted to one idea, so you can watch exactly the concept a chapter needs. Barton Zwiebach is meticulous: every step on the board is justified.
Explainer · YouTube
Khan Academy
Khan Academy's beginner introduction to what the quantum wavefunction is, how to use it and where it comes from. Watch for how ψ is turned into probabilities, the recipe that Parts 2 and 3 make exact.
Explainer · YouTube
The Science Asylum
Nick Lucid asks the question at the heart of Part 1 and Part 6, what exactly is waving, and ties the wavefunction to probability and statistics. A lively second pass on what the wavefunction is, and what it is not.
Explainer · YouTube
Richard Behiel
A visual case for why quantum mechanics runs on complex numbers, aimed at learners who have met some quantum mechanics but find the complex numbers puzzling. Behiel pictures the phase as a generalization of plus and minus that drives interference: this section's arrows, which Part 5 puts to work. His chapter 'Plane Waves' (14:30) is this section's winding-phase wave; the closing 'U(1) Symmetry Implies Electromagnetism' (18:07) is an optional extra.
Explainer · YouTube
Professor Dave Explains
Professor Dave on what wavefunctions are, then how to normalize them and calculate expectation values: the recipes of this section and of Part 4. It assumes you have met operators and picks up bra-ket notation and inner products along the way, chapter 14's language, so treat normalization and expectation values as the payoff.
Interview · Institute for Quantum Computing
Institute for Quantum Computing · Urbasi Sinha
Urbasi Sinha, then a postdoctoral fellow at Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing, explains the triple-slit experiment that put Born's rule on trial, the 2010 test this section describes. The logic to keep in mind: squaring sums of amplitudes produces only pairwise interference, so a genuine three-path term would break the rule.