Customer Reviews

The Quantum Theory of Fields

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me start by stating the essentials:

1. If you are a grad student in theoretical physics or you already have your Ph.D, buy this book! If you are an amateur trying to figure out how the universe works this book will simply break your heart because you will understant none of it.

2. The book is beautifully printed by Cambridge University Press. You don't see this sort of quality often these days, when the European-style el cheapo paper back has become the norm.

3. It is an expensive book, but Amazon has some bargain re-sellers. I bought my copy at a substantial discount. It was supposedly second-hand but had obviously never even been breathed on. And it got here in two days.

4. This is a book mainly about formalism and mathematics. If you get about half-way through you will eventually reach some discussion of experimental results but this is not the emphasis here.

5. Finally, on a personal note. I am a retired theoretical physicist and about forty years ago I even wrote a paper on quantum electrodynamics. So I thought that maybe I could attempt to read this book. I know the words, Hermitian operators, Lorentz transformations, stuff like that. Yet I'm having a very hard time getting through it. After about a month of trying I'm about to give up. I can read chapters 1 and most of 2, but after that it becomes too hard for me. One problem is that it is not often explained what the point of all that complicated mathematics really is. It certainly does not give me a better understanding of the physical world although I suppose it would do that if I persevered long enough. That's why I gave it only 4 stars.

I received this item 3-4 days after order. The packaging was so good as well as the quality of book.

Weinberg's book can be considered a masterpiece in QFT. The quality of physical insight, the mathematical details, and the logical coherence of the development of the subject as a whole are simply brilliant and outstandingly original. The book assumes a certain level of mathematical sophistication on the part of the reader; this, however, is essential; without this, the technical grasp of the subject cannot be complete.

One note to readers who wish to purchase the book:
I had a bad experience with Amazon on this purchase. They shipped me an older print of the book at the current price of the latest 2002 print and refused to correct the problem. I had no alternative but to return the book and obtain it from another source. So, be aware of this problem if you wish to buy it from Amazon or elsewhere. Make sure you buy the latest edition. There have been quite a few corrected editions since the book was first published in 1995 by CUP.

You can read Weinberg's textbooks with joy and profit knowing a decent amount of mathematics and not much physics. Both "Gravitation and Cosmology" and "The Quantum Theory of Fields:vol I" are very self-contained. The ideas develop beautifully, naturally, and clearly. You might have to re-read but you won't need another reference for the topics that he covers, and you won't be overwhelmed with inessential or improperly motivated material.

Quite often incomprehensible(I'm a graduate student). Not that it's mathematically clear either. But he covers lots of interesting topics. I liked his group theory part best.

Taken together, these three volumes on QFT are comprehensive, clear, and logical in presentation, written with Weinberg's customary brilliant flair. (I felt the same way about his text on general relativity - "Gravitation and Cosmology" - when it came out.) One would think that the man who won a physics Nobel in the 70's should be rather out of date. Well, Weinberg is one exception to the rule. He's really current and abreast of the latest research on supersymmetry and strings. Quite a feat. In the preface (not available here as a sample page) Weinberg apologizes for the lack of mathematical rigor which may "bring tears to the mathematically inclined" readers. It's true, there aren't many problems to solve - though those he does provide are carefully chosen and will give you quite a workout. On the other hand, these three books are not for the novice or the faint of heart. Those who are not well grounded in the necessary prerequisites like Feynman diagrams would do well to brush up before they tackle Weinberg.

An excellent resource, both as text and as reference, with just the right balance of technical sophistication and philosophical insight. It will set the standards for all similar works for years to come.

For those who are receptive to its charms, this book is simply indispensible to any high energy physicist. This book is not terribly "intuitive"(in the sense that things are derived heuristically just to the point that the result seeems plausible), nor does it take a purely mathematical standpoint, emphasizing the unbending rigour of all proofs. Instead, it offers something far, far more valuable to any physicist; namely it offers truly profound physical insight into the fundamental principles of nature. This book is so chock full of brilliant profound ideas that it seems as if Weinberg put into this book almost all of the insights he has had over the course of his long, productive, and Nobel Prize winning career. He offers a truly logical presentation of particle physics, starting from the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics (superposition principle especially) and the principle of invariance under the Poincare group modulo time and spatial inversion, as well as the principle that distant measurements do not affect each other, and derives, with a minimum of simplifying assumption, the whole, wonderful edifice of quantum field theory. This set of volumes contains almost all that we know about QFT, but somehow, magically, it is not encyclopedic; it is instead refreshingly original and, as I have said before, truly profound. Also, unlike many other QFT texts, it very clearly points out how the assumptions of the theory could be weakened, and also gives an indication of what sorts of theories come from these modified assumptions. The whole book is simply fascinating, but I found the chapter on general renormalization theory particularly enlightening, especially the section on "nonrenormlizable" theories. I learned, in a particularly clear, inspiring way, that these theories are not any more or less renormalizable than standard model theories, when all terms alowed by symmetry are included in the Lagrangian. Although these theories might seem as if they have little power of prediction (after all, there are an infinite number of parameters to the theory), but in fact Weinberg argues that the nonrenormalizalbe interactions are strongly suppressed at low momenta, so it is possible for low energies to create an effective perturbation theory, which yield in this regime astonishingly precise prediction. On the other hand, Weinberg is quick to point out that for large enough energies, this perturbation expansion simply does not make sense, and that THIS is the reason why quantum gravity based on the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian makes no sense for energies at the scale of unification.
Although this book is truly wonderful, I would not recommend reading it as an introduction to QFT. This book is simply too intense and profound for the uninitiated. Instead, I would recommend as a first introduction Ryder's fine text, which yields enough insights to give the reader a taste of the ideas behing QFT but not so many that the reader is overwhelmed at first, followed by Peskin-Schroeder, which gives the student all of the tools that he/she will need for almost any QFT calculation.

Well, this is an excellent book if used together with a more simple one (Ryder, Kaku, or Peskin/Schroeder): in fact you can find almost everything in Weinberg's, and every topic is treated in a clear but deep way. I mean, the book gives a reason for everything. This has two consequences: the first is that, reading all of it, one will get a strong basis of QFT, the second is that this could cost more time if one uses just Weinberg's. That's why using it with Ryder's, for example, is a good choice. I still have to read the 2nd volume of Weinberg trilogy, but it seems to me that his work lacks of a modern geometrical approach: this is the only negative aspect I could point out, and that's another good reason for using it together with another book. Briefly: the book is excellent as a strong support.

Well, this is an excellent book if used together with a more simple one (Ryder, Kaku, or Peskin/Schroeder): in fact you can find almost everything in Weinberg's, and every topic is treated in a clear but deep way. I mean, the book gives a reason for everything. This has two consequences: the first is that, reading all of it, one will get a strong basis of QFT, the second is that this could cost more time if one uses just Weinberg's. That's why using it with Ryder's, for example, is a good choice. I still have to read the 2nd volume of Weinberg trilogy, but it seems to me that his work lacks of a modern geometrical approach: this is the only negative aspect I could point out, and that's another good reason for using it together with another book. Briefly: the book is excellent as a strong support.

In this book and the others in the series, Weinberg bends over backwards to make sure every line is justified so the reader does not have to stop and puzzle over logical gaps, caveats left unmentioned, etc. Also, typically Weinberg will prove the general case of a result, instead of sticking with a simple example, or referring to the literature. It should be added that these same characteristics give the book an emphasis which isn't quite suitable for a first introduction to qft; however, any serious student will want to read the series.