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Bohm, David
Quantum Theory
Dover Publications Inc. (5/1989)
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5 book(s) with the same title
On the Quantum Theory of Line-Spectra. Part I-II. [Off-print from ""D. Kgl. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Skrifter"". - [BOHR'S CORRESPONDENCE PRINCIPLE - PRESENTATION-COPIES]
Copenhagen, Bianco Lunos, 1918. 4to. Both parts uncut and in the original printed wrappers. Wrappers detached and with small nicks and tears to extremities. Internally fine and clean. Part I unopened. 36 pp. + pp. (37) - 100.
First editions, author's off-prints (with ""Separate Copy"" printed to front wrappers), presentation-copies, of the first two parts of Bohr's seminal work ""On the Quantum Theory of the Line-Spectra"" (which appeared in three parts and which was never finished, the third part of which, published 4 years later, is almost never found in presentation-sets), in which Bohr gave his first clear presentation of his groundbreaking ""correspondence principle"": ""Which would play a pivotal role in the later development of atomic theory and its transformation into quantum mechanics."" (Kragh, Quantum Generations, p. 56). It eventually became a cornerstone in the quantum mechanics formulated by Heisenberg and Schrödinger. ""There was rarely in the history of physics a comprehensive theory which owed so much to one principle as quantum mechanics owed to Bohr's correspondence principle"" (Jammer 1966, p. 118). The evolution of quantum theory is divided into two distinct periods"" from 1900 to 1925, usually referred to as the period with the old quantum theory still grounded in classical physics and the second period with quantum mechanics from 1925 onwards. The general rules of quantum mechanics are very successful in describing objects on an atomic level. But macroscopic systems are accurately described by classical theories like classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics. If quantum mechanics were to be applicable to macroscopic objects, there must be some limit in which quantum mechanics reduces to classical mechanics. Bohr's correspondence principle demands that classical physics and quantum physics give the same answer when the systems become large. ""A major tool he developed for dealing with quantum problem, [...], was the correspondence principle, which establishes links between predictions of the classical theory and expectations for the quantum theory."" (Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, p. 20.). In this sense, the correspondence principle is not only an exceedingly important methodological principle, it also represents the transition to quantum mechanics and modern physics in general and it became the cornerstone of Bohr's philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics which later would be closely tied to his thesis of complementarity and to the Copenhagen interpretation. Another version of the correspondence principle lives on in philosophical literature where it has taken form as a more general concept representing a development of new scientific theories.""By 1918 Bohr had visualized, at least in outline, the whole theory of atomic phenomena. ... He of course realized that he was still very far from a logically consistent framework wide enough to incorporate both the quantum postulates and those aspects of classical mechanics and electrodynamics that seemed to retain some validity. Nevertheless, he at once started writing up a synthetic exposition of his arguments and of all the evidence upon which they could have any bearing" in testing how well he could summarize what was known, he found occasion to check the soundness of his ideas and to improve their formulation. In the present case, however, he could hardly keep pace with the growth of the subject the paper he had in mind at the beginning developed into a four-part treatise, 'On the Theory of Line Spectra', publication of which dragged over four years without being completed" the first three parts appeared between 1918 and 1922 [of which the two first from 1918 are offered here], and the fourth, unfortunately, was never published. Thus, the full impact of Bohr's view remained confined to the small but brilliant circle of his disciples, who indeed managed better than their master to make them more widely known by the prompter publication of their own results"" (D.S.B. II: 246-47).Inscribed to ""Hr. Docent D. la Cour/ Venskabeligst/ fra/ Forfatteren"" on both front wrappers. The renowned Danish physicist and meteorologist Dan la Cour (1876-1942), was the son of the great Poul la Cour (1846-1908), who is considered the ""Danish Edison"". Dan la Cour was the assistant of Niels Bohr's father, Christian Bohr, and a well known scientist. From 1903, he was head of the department of the Meteorological Institute, and from 1923 leader thereof. From 1908 he was Associate Professor at the Polytechnic College. His original scientific works are highly respected, as are his original apparati for measuring earth magnetism which are considered highly valuable. ""His original intelligence, which in many ways resemble that of his father, also bore fruit in his patenting of various inventions: the ""Pyknoprobe"", developed to quickly determine the different layers of the sea"" a use of termite in quickly heating food and drinks out in the open under unfavourable weather conditions."" (From the Danish Encyclopaedia - own translation). He wrote a number of important and esteemed works and was member of the Danish Scientific Academy as well as many prominent international scientific commissions of meteorology and geophysics (i.e. president of the International Geodetical and Geophysical Union). He was also honorary Doctor at the George Washington University. Rosenfeld, Bohr-Bibliography, 15.
"DIRAC, P.A.M. (PAUL ADRIEN MAURICE). - THE RADIATION THEORY, THE BIRTH OF QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
Reference : 47023
(1927)
The Quantum Theory of Emission and Absorption of Radiation. (+) The Quantum Theory of Dispersion. (2 Papers).
London, Harrison And Sons, Ltd., 1927. Royal8vo. Contemp. full cloth. A small stamp on verso of titlepage. In: ""Proceedings of the Royal Society of London"", Series A, Vol. 114. VI,IX,748 pp. (entire volume offered). Dirac's papers: pp. 243-265 a. pp. 710-728. Clean and fine.
First appearance of these milestone papers in Quantum Physics, constituting the first step in Quantum Field Theory and the invention of the Second Quantifization Method. By these papers Dirac ""gave the foundation for that theory, quantum electrodynamics""(Pais).""A New Radiation Theory. Dirac liked his transformation theory because it was the outcome of a planned line of research and not a fortuitous discovery. He forced his future investigations to fit it. The first results of this strategy were almost miraculous. First came his new radiation theory, in February 1927, which quantized for the first time James Clerk Maxwell’s radiation in interaction with atoms. Previous quantum-mechanical studies of radiation problems, except for Jordan’s unpopular attempt, retained purely classical fields. In late 1925 Jordan had applied Heisenberg’s rules of quantization to continuous free fields and obtained a light-quantum structure with the expected statistics (Bose Einstein) and dual fluctuation properties. Dirac further demonstrated that spontaneous emission and its characteristics—previously taken into account only by special postulates—followed from the interaction between atoms and the quantum field. Essential to this success was the fact that Dirac’s transformation theory eliminated from the interpretation of the quantum formalism every reference to classical emitted radiation, contrary to Heisenberg’s original point of view and also to Schrödinger’s concept of ? as a classical source of field.This work was done during Dirac’s visit to Copenhagen in the winter of 1927. Presumably to please Bohr, who insisted on wave-particle duality and equality, Dirac opposed the ""corpuscular point of view"" to the quantized electromagnetic ""wave point of view."" He started with a set of massless Bose particles described by symmetric ? waves in configuration space. As he discovered by’ playing with the equations, ’ this description was equivalent to a quantized Schrödinger equation in the space of one particle"" this’ second quantization’ was already known to Jordan, who during 1927 extended it into the basic modern quantum field representation of matter. Dirac limited his use of second quantization electromagnetic to radiation: to establish that the corpuscular point of view, once brought into this form, was equivalent to the wave point of view.""(DSB).
The Quantum Theory of the Electron - [FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DIRAC EQUATION]
London, Harrison and Sons, 1928. Royal8vo. In the original printed wrappers. In ""Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, Vol. 117, No. 778"". Black cloth backstrip pasted on to spine, otherwise a fine copy (without institutional stamps). [Dirac's paper:]Pp 610-624. [Entire issue:] Pp. 541-730, (2), XXXVI, X + 6 plates.
First printing of Dirac's landmark paper in which he unified quantum mechanics and relativity and implied the existence of antimatter now known as the Dirac Equation"" one of the great triumphs of theoretical physics which brought him on a par with the works of Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein before him. In 1933 he was awarded the Nobel Price in Physics ""for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"", a direct consequence of the present paper. ""[The Dirac Equations] ranks among the highest achievements of twentieth-century science"" (Pais, Inward Bound, p. 290).""In the Dirac equation not only quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity were married, but also the spin of the electron is contained in it without any ad hoc assumption. But the equation not just beautifully described known phenomena, it did more. It predicted the existence of electrons with negative energy. This was at first held to be a severe problem of the theory but was finally understood as great progress, because negative-energy electrons could be interpreted as hitherto unknown particles. Thus, the existence of new particles was predicted which had all properties of the electron except for the electric charge. These particles were indeed found four years after the equation. Dirac is often quoted to have said that his equation 'contains most of physics and all of chemistry'."" (Brandt, The Harvest of a Century).""Even with the many successful applications of quantum mechanics to spectroscopy and other areas of physics, the theory was not without problems. There was, for example, the question of the relationship between relativity and quantum mechanics. If quantum mechanics was really a fundamental theory of the microcosmos, it ought to be consistent with the fundamental theory of macroscopic bodies, the (special) theory of relativity. Yet it was obvious from the very beginning that this was not the case. It was not too difficult to construct a relativistic quantum wave equation, such as Schrödinger had already done privately and as Oskar Klein, Walter Gordon, and several other physicists did in 1926-27. Unfortunately, this equation, known as the Klein-Gordon equation, did not result in the correct fine structure of hydrogen and it proved impossible to combine it with the spin theory that Pauli had proposed in 1927. The solution appeared in January 1928, when Dirac published his classical paper on 'The Quantum Theory of the Electron', which included a relativistic wave equation that automatically incorporated the correct spin. Dirac's equation was of the same general form as Schrödinger's equation [...] and included matrices with four rows and four columns"" correspondingly the Dirac wave function had four components. Most remarkably, without introducing the spinning electron in advance, the equation contained the correct spin. In a certain, unhistorical sense, had spin not been discovered empirically, it would have turned up deductively from Dirac's theory. The new theory was quickly accepted when it turned out that the Dirac eigenvalue equation for a hydrogen atom resulted in exactly the same energy equation that Sommerfeld had derived in 1916. Dirac's relativistic wave equation marked the end of the pioneering and heroic phase of quantum mechanics, and also marked the beginning of a new phase"" (Kragh, Quantum Generations, p. 167)
The Quantum Theory of Optical Coherence. - [DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM OPTICS]
Lancaster, American Institute of Physics, 1963. Lex8vo. Volume 130, 15 June, No. 6, of ""The Physical Review"", Second Series. Entire volume offered in the original printed blue wrappers. Previous owner's stamp to front wrapper. Wear to spine and extremities. Internally fine and clean. Pp. 2529-38. [Entire issue: Pp. 2135-2622].
First publication of this seminal paper in which the first thorough development of the quantum theory of optical coherence was presented. The present paper led directly to Glauber being awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2005 ""for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"". His theories are today widely used in the field of quantum optics.""After the discovery of the maser and the laser in the sixties new ideas for quantum effects of the radiation field were in the air. However, there was no theory for their observation. It was only in 1963 that Roy [Glauber] had developed the quantum theory of optical coherence [in the present paper]. Here the concept of coherence state plays a central role. Coherent states had been proposed for the first time by Erwin Schrödinger in order to show that a wavepacket needs not always to be bound to spread. The coherent state became the crucial tool for Roy's theory of optical coherence. In particular, he could show that for coherent fields all correlation functions factorize."" (Scully. Quantum theory of optical coherence. 2009. P. xv.).Glauber's work was essential for understanding and the further development of the laser.
On the Quantum Theory of Line-Spectra, Part I - III. - [BOHR'S CORRESPONDENCE PRINCIPLE]
København, Bianco Lunos Bogtrykkeri, 1918 - 1922. 4to. Uncut unopened in the original printed wrappers. In ""D. Kgl. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Skrifter, afd., 8, række IV, 1-3"" / ""Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Lettres de Danemark"". Wrapper with a few minor nicks and tears but otherwise a very fine and clean copy. 118 pp.
Collected offprint-edition of Bohr's seminal work ""On the Quantum Theory of the Line-Spectra"", marking the beginning of the quantum revolution in physics, introduced the concept of quantized energy levels, provided an explanation for the observed line spectra, and served as a foundational model that inspired further developments in quantum mechanics. It is conseidered one of Bohr's most important papers and the basis for his Nobel Prize. These papers give the first clear formulation of his 'correspondence principle' establishing the limit agreement of quantum and classical physics. ""By 1918 Bohr had visualized, at least in outline, the whole theory of atomic phenomena. ... He of course realized that he was still very far from a logically consistent framework wide enough to incorporate both the quantum postulates and those aspects of classical mechanics and electrodynamics that seemed to retain some validity. Nevertheless, he at once started writing up a synthetic exposition of his arguments and of all the evidence upon which they could have any bearing" in testing how well he could summarize what was known, he found occasion to check the soundness of his ideas and to improve their formulation. In the present case, however, he could hardly keep pace with the growth of the subject the paper he had in mind at the beginning developed into a four-part treatise, 'On the Theory of Line Spectra', publication of which dragged over four years without being completed" the first three parts appeared between 1918 and 1922, and the fourth, unfortunately, was never published. Thus, the full impact of Bohr's view remained confined to the small but brilliant circle of his disciples, who indeed managed better than their master to make them more widely known by the prompter publication of their own results"" (D.S.B. 2: 246-47).
