Visual Quantum Mechanics





  • November 22, 2004:
    The book Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics is ready at last! I just received my advance copy from the printer. Check out Amazon.com or visit Springer's catalog.

  • September 28, 2004:

    The software accompanying the book Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics ("AVQM") is winner of the EASA 2004, the European Academic Software Award.

    • "The European Academic Software Award (EASA) is a competition for the application of innovative software and education technology, designed to stimulate the understanding, development and use of knowledge media within higher education across Europe. [...] At the Finals, projects of exceptional quality are nominated for EASA awards." (cited from EASA's web site)

    • The EASA is issued every second year to the top ten academic software projects in all categories without further ranking. This year's finals took place in Le Locle and Neuchatel, Switzerland. Submissions were received from 19 European countries, 158 participants were selected for the contest. After a complicated evaluation process, 30 projects entered the finals. I am glad that Eugene Butikov's project "Planets and Satellites" is also a winner. Anybody interested in physics will enjoy his collection of remarkable three body motions.

    • The software for the first book, Visual Quantum Mechanics ("VQM"), was a winner at the EASA 2000 held in Rotterdam. It took me more than four years to develop the software and the content for the second book. The second award helps me maintain the belief that this time was not spent in vain.





  • August 2004: I just learned that due to changes in Springer's editorial staff, the publication of my book "Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics" was delayed. According to my information, it will probably go to the printer on September 12. Concerning a possible publication date, let me quote a recent email from my editor:

    • As of now the book could be published in the US by early November. Australian customers will receive copies of the book through our Heidelberg, Germany, warehouse. This means a delay of 4-6 weeks after availability in the US. For course adoptions we can make special arrangements if needed but it is obvious that we will miss any course starting this August. The book will be more suited for courses starting Spring 2005 then.

  • July 2004: The software for the book "Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics" will be present at the finals of the European Academic Software Award 2004 (EASA 2004) in LeLocle, Switzerland. That means that AVQM belongs to Europe's 30 best academic software projects.

  • June 2004: This web site has the new short URL
    http://vqm.uni-graz.at/
    It can still be reached under any of the following URLs:
    http://www.uni-graz.at/imawww/vqm/
    http://www.kfunigraz.ac.at/imawww/vqm/

  • May 2004: While the book "Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics" is in production, I'm reorganizing this web site, thereby adding content related to Book Two. The sole purpose of the reorganization is to make the whole thing easier to maintain for me. I'm now using frames (although I hate them) because I don't want to change every single html page when I just want to change the navigation sidebar. Moreover, I have removed most of the Javascript buttons, because they add nothing to the information and might cause problems with older web browsers. Most of the pages should now load faster because I optimized the jpg files.

  • March 2004: I have returned a corrected version of the manuscript incorporating all changes suggested by a professional copy editor at Springer-Verlag. Moreover, I have produced a master CD-ROM. It will be tested by Springer-Verlag's electronic department. Now, everything is out of my hands.

  • December 2003: "Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics" has entered the production stage. This means that for the next few weeks (months?) I will be working with a production editor at Springer-Verlag New York to give the manuscript the final touch.

  • Mai 31, 2003: I apologize to all who are anxiously awaiting my second book with quantum-mechanical visualizations. I assure you that I am working hard to complete this project. The good news is that I'm almost finished. It took me four years to write the first book and - despite my efforts to be quicker this time - it took me four years to complete the second book. (Well, it's not just the book. Most of the work goes into the visualizations.)

    The second book will be called "Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics" with the subtitle "Quantum Information, Atomic Physics, Relativistic Quantum Mechanics". I plan to send the completed manuscript to Springer-Verlag New York in September 2003. According to my experience, production will take half a year.

  • June 22, 2002: Top 5 % - Award from P. Krahmer's Multimedia Physik, an excellent link collection (in german).

  • March 5, 2002: Well, there is not so much to tell. VQM-1 went into a second printing (no changes, just a few printing errors corrected). I'm still busy with VQM Book Two. The text of VQM-2 has now about 300 pages, a few sections still waiting to be written. Most of the work now goes into the CD. There will be an improved interface, visualizations in 3D, and some interactive screen experiments concerning quantum information theory. The movies will be described by several hundred pages of text. I plan to distribute a few hundred Mathematica-4 notebooks with the CD. Unfortunately, this takes a while. In the meantime, have a look at the new examples concerning the Dirac equation.

  • March 12, 2001: The VQM-website has been elected "web site of the week" by the PhysLink.com newsletter. PhysLink.com is one of the best physics web sites. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

  • March 3, 2001: Visual Quantum Mechanics has inspired two artists, Ingrid Moshik and GM Kindlinger. Here you can see an internet exhibition of thirty pieces of electronic art based on visualizations of atomic wave functions.

  • Decembeer 20, 2000: The local newspaper UNI-ZEIT has an article about Visual Quantum Mechanics(in German, written by Norbert Swoboda)

  • November 28, 2000: I am proud to announce that
    Visual Quantum Mechanics has won the European Academic Software Award (EASA-2000) with a special mention of outstanding innovation in its field.
    The finals for the award took place in Rotterdam. The jury had to choose from 30 finalists. The finalists were chosen from 273 entries to the competition. 10 awards were granted, and the jury mentioned two projects for outstanding achievements (Visual Quantum Mechanics, for outstanding innovation, and CSP for excellent European focus). Another physics project that received an award was ISE.
    The prize is awarded every two years to a maximum of ten products in the categories of innovative teachware, research software or Internet applications. The goal of the European competition, which has been held since 1994, is to stimulate the development and implementation of high quality software for education and research. The EASA is an initiative of the European Knowledge Media Association (EKMA).

  • November 21, 2000: Springer-Verlag in Germany has updated its database. Visit the page of VQM in Springer's web catalogue.

  • November 14, 2000: Who said that macroscopic superposition states are difficult to observe? Presently we see a whole country in a "Schrödinger cat state"

      1/Sqrt[2] ( | Bush > + | Gore > )

    This superposition will persist until a definitive measurement is made. Then the state will collapse to one of the two possibilities. Until then interference is likely to occur.

  • September 19, 2000: The software coming with Visual Quantum Mechanics has been selected as a finalist for the European Academic Software Award.

  • June 15, 2000: The first book is now available. Check out Amazon.com or visit the new Springer catalog (Springer-Verlag, New York).