Applications of Quantum Mechanics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX

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Provider

edX
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Duration & workload

19 weeks, 12-16 hours a week
Sessions

Finished
Level

Advanced
Subtitles

English

Found in

Overview

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In this quantum physics course, you will learn about the primary perturbative methods in quantum mechanics: degenerate and non-degenerate time-independent perturbation theory, the semi-classical WKB approximation, time-dependent perturbation theory, the adiabatic approximation, and scattering theory. Together, these approximation methods represent a valuable set of tools that are broadly applicable across almost all of physics. We will use these methods to study a variety of systems that do not admit analytic solutions, including the fine structure of hydrogen, tunneling rates, radiative decay and molecules. We will also investigate the quantum mechanical description of a particle in a magnetic field, and discuss the symmetries associated with multi-particle systems in detail.

This is the final course of a series of courses on edX:

8.04x Quantum Mechanics
8.05x Mastering Quantum Mechanics
8.06x Applications of Quantum Mechanics

The course is based on the MIT course, 8.06: Quantum Mechanics III. At MIT, 8.06 is the final course in a three-course undergraduate sequence in Quantum Mechanics. 8.06 is a capstone in the education of physics majors, preparing them for advanced and specialized study in any field related to quantum physics.

Image source: Gerd Altmann

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Please note that edX, Inc. has recently entered into an agreement to transfer the edX platform to 2U, Inc., which will continue to run the platform thereafter. The sale will not affect your course enrollment, course fees or change your course experience for this offering. It is possible that the closing of the sale and the transfer of the edX platform will be effectuated sometime while this course is running. Please be aware that there could be changes to the edX platform Privacy Policy or Terms of Service after the closing of the sale, although 2U has committed to preserving robust privacy of individual data for all learners who use the platform. For more information see the edX Help Center. In order to continue in the course after the sale, you will need to opt into continuing to use the site under the new ownership. Future offerings of this course will be run on a new MIT platform instead of edX/2U, beginning in 2022-2023.

Syllabus

Time-independent non-degenerate and degenerate perturbation theory
The fine structure of the Hydrogen atom
The semi-classical WKB approximation
Time-dependent perturbation theory
Atoms and light
Charged particles in magnetic fields
The adiabatic approximation
Scattering
Identical particles

Taught by

Barton Zwiebach and Jolyon Bloomfield

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 15 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Applications of Quantum Mechanics

Mauro Lacy @maurolacy

It was real fun to do this marathonic course. Highly recommended, particularly if you have enough time to dedicate to it.
Anonymous

A wonderful course. Very intense. Lectures of Prof. Zwiebach are very inspiring and clear. The problems and exercises are made with lot of care. Each problem is a piece of art. The problems require involved and careful calculations. I almost complet…

A wonderful course. Very intense. Lectures of Prof. Zwiebach are very inspiring and clear. The problems and exercises are made with lot of care. Each problem is a piece of art. The problems require involved and careful calculations. I almost completed the course. I learned a large number of methods and techniques I never imagined I can understand and master in such a short period of time.

Almost all questions receive an answered from the staff. However, staff often is disrespectful toward the students. I often read personal remarks in the answer of the staff to the students, such as "you are either blind or dyslexic", or "don't be crackpot", or "at this stage of the course you were supposed to already know that", etc. Even if the technical part of the questions were answered, the lack of respect, demotivated and made many students leave the course. Many students joint the course very excited about QM, and this can be a cold shower for them.

Apart the remark on the staff, this course is of the highest standard.
Anonymous

This course certainly requires a good background on the basics of quantum physics, and then, as you walk through a large set of lectures you gradually increase your knowledge and get a better feeling of the quantum world (you might love it more, or…

This course certainly requires a good background on the basics of quantum physics, and then, as you walk through a large set of lectures you gradually increase your knowledge and get a better feeling of the quantum world (you might love it more, or get more frustrated along the way too!). However, it requires a legitimate amount of time for the related material to sink in. To be realistic, this will not happen immediately after you have completed the course, so it might be useful to come back to the course after some years for a second time (if still available), or, just review all the lectures a couple of more times (once done with the course) at your own pace. Of course, it is a totally different story to be able to use all this toolkit appropriately in real research problems, so let's not talk about it right now. The big cons of the course: (a) The lecturer does his best to present difficult and advanced concepts in a pedagogical and coherent way (frequently being clearer than the author of the suggested textbook for the course), and the class presentation is supplemented with equally pedagogical lecture notes offered for free (which could supplement the equally nice suggested textbook). (b) The course is also supplemented with non-trivial homework, where at several instances you might come across stuff not found in other quantum physics textbooks. Concluding, I have spent somewhat between twice and twice and a half the indicative time effort for this course (this means that it requires true dedication!), but it certainly deserves it ... actually I wish there was additional possibly optional homework for those who want to practice more or go deeper.
Anonymous

Hi, I was a student and staff member for the course. This course was intensive, designed as a follow-on course to the introductory MITx 8.04x quantum mechanics, and the 8.05x Mastering Quantum Mechanics courses. The course taught advanced areas of…

Hi, I was a student and staff member for the course. This course was intensive, designed as a follow-on course to the introductory MITx 8.04x quantum mechanics, and the 8.05x Mastering Quantum Mechanics courses. The course taught advanced areas of quantum mechanics in ways that were often superior to standard quantum mechanics textbooks. Professor Zwiebach's notes (which will eventually become a book) were superlative. The course lasted about 19 weeks with several catch up weeks. A lot of work but worth it.

One of the unique especially for an online course were the term papers. Students including myself wrote publishable Latex quality (up to 7 page double column) physics papers on various advanced quantum mechanics topics - mine was on the calculation of the exact energy levels in the hydrogen atom using Sommerfeld's old quantum theory, and Dirac relativistic wave equation. We received peer/staff feedback and suggestions on out papers. If you want to learn how to write and publish physics papers, you will get a great start in this course.
Purvaash Shankar

Boon given by MIT! This course was the first time I paid for a course on edX, and it was worth the money, time and effort. I audited the previous to courses, whose concepts are required to understand this course better. This course is the same as ta…

Boon given by MIT!
This course was the first time I paid for a course on edX, and it was worth the money, time and effort. I audited the previous to courses, whose concepts are required to understand this course better. This course is the same as taken by regular undergraduates at MIT. So you get the opportunity to experience how it is to study at MIT. The standards and quality are far beyond what I have attended so far. This is the second online exam I took. The difficulty level of the exam was also appropriate for this course. This course but demands a lot of time and effort and also offered the opportunity to write a term paper on LaTeX. The course instructor, Prof. Barton Zwiebach, is one of the best teacher/educators. He is a dedicated professor and exquisitely delivers difficult topics. He has an excellent teaching style, and all his lectures were pretty impressive. He introduces the issue first, talks about the approach, why the proposal would make sense, and clearly states the assumptions before jumping into the derivation.
In my opinion, the course was successful in completing its goal, and it is all because of the efforts of the TA's Jolyon Bloomfield, Mark Weitzman, Jim Freericks and BlueFlow. I initially was worried, doubting how I would get my doubts cleared as this was an online course, and it costs 100 dollars (not that easy for me). Thankfully, the forum was very well maintained, and the TA's were very much quick in responding back and always offered proper guidance.
There was also an ample number of exercises and problems to work out and test your understanding. Many of them were time-consuming, but the end result was always beneficial, you really start understanding the topics introduced.
I really loved the course and would recommend this course to people who wanted to learn more about Quantum Mechanics. I will also definitely continue participating in upcoming MOOC's offered by MITx.
Anonymous

This is an excellent course: puts you on the edge of research in field of quantum sciences. The staff and TA community are helpful and thoughtful people: Thank you Jolyon, Jim and Mark.

The idea of ending the course with a research paper is just unique and valuable experience. The only side effect is that the course is huge load (More than 30 hours/week for me), but it depends on your background.

I'd recommend it for Senior undergraduate students.
Anonymous

Wonderful course, but it is not self passed as quoted. This is a drawback since it is 3.5 times more effort and time consuming than previous MITx QM courses. Actually the course took more 30 hr per week to many students. I will take it again, hope it will be self passed next time will run.
Anonymous

The depth and quality of this course are outstanding. A lot of work from many very smart people has gone into making this class, as well as 8.04x and 8.05x, and the complete sequence of 8.04x, 8.05x and 8.06x is really all you need to master Quantum Mechanics. Completing this class will make you ready to tackle any historical or current paper in Quantum Mechanics.
Anonymous

This course is excellent in terms of every quality. It is structured very well. I was able to follow the material when I study properly. TA's were very helpful. The homework exceeded my expectations and helped me learn much more than I thought it would do. The instructor, Prof. Barton Zwiebach, is a master at teaching and describing the material.
Anonymous

This is an excellent course. The videos, the notes, the attention provided in the forum, everything is superb. I highly recommend it. Before enrolling, you should know that the course is quite demanding. Firstly you need a rather strong background i…

This is an excellent course. The videos, the notes, the attention provided in the forum, everything is superb. I highly recommend it. Before enrolling, you should know that the course is quite demanding. Firstly you need a rather strong background in mathematics and physics and secondly you need to have enough time to follow it. It is really worth the effort. Sincerely, I have learned in this course more than in any physics course I have followed, and they have been quite a lot.
The syllabus is a kind of mix of different topics sometimes without an apparent relation but from my point of view this is an asset of the course that gives a panorama of basic approximation methods and a final brief review on identical particles (perhaps the weakest part). The title "Applications of Quantum Mechanics" is a little misleading but it is impossible to select a name encompassing all the topics.

I am extremely grateful to the instructors and to the people that helped them in the forum.
Anonymous

I think all of the opinions posted describe very well this course. (I'm sitill studying it as I couldn't finish it spending around 15 hours per week but I left university 40 years ago). Professor Barton is wonderful, the staff- Jolyon, Mark and J…

I think all of the opinions posted describe very well this course. (I'm sitill studying it as I couldn't finish it spending around 15 hours per week but I left university 40 years ago). Professor Barton is wonderful, the staff- Jolyon, Mark and Jim - did a extremely good work, the community of students was very alive and vibrant. The exercises included after every video lecture and the Problem Sets allow you to better understand and deep dive what you thought you have already understood. The only problem is that this course in my opinion should take probably a 50% or more than scheduled, due to the difficulty of the contents, the number and complexity of exercises and problems, and the paper to be done. But my summary is that 8.06 course is a wonderful and useful experience. Thanks to MIT!!!
Anonymous

Excellent quantum mechanics course. The video lectures by Prof. Zwiebach is very clear, the exercises and weekly assignments are challenging but interesting, and the TAs in forum are extremely helpful. There is even a term paper assignment, where we need to use the skills we learn in this course to explain some quantum mechanics related phenomenon. The TAs help me a lot. I've learned much out of this online course. Also recommend 8.04x - 8.05x that are in the same MIT's quantum mechanics series.
Anonymous

There is no better course than this. Aptly scheduled for quantum mechanics and related fields. Combined with 8.04x and 8.05x on edx, this course is one of the best courses to ever exists. Neatly developed lecture notes, videos, exercises and problems. Highly interactive discussion forum. Definitely recommended course, you can't miss it.
David Brahm

This is a serious advanced undergrad (or early graduate) MIT-level physics course, but the lectures/notes are world-class, and you will learn a lot if you put in the effort. New this year: you do have to register ($99) to take the exams and get credit for your written paper, but it is well worth it.
Fedor Indutny

Fantastic course with well-written exercises and instructive video lectures. The material covered includes various applications of Quantum Mechanics, including: perturbation theory, hyper-fine splitting, Fermi's golden rule, and many other topics.