Description

he emphasis in the presentation adopted is on the basic principles, the calculational techniques and the inner consistency and beauty of the theory. A Hilbert space formulation of the basic principles and the equations of motion is adopted at the outset. The treatment of linear vector spaces, matrices, angular momentum, relativistic wave equations, quantum field theory and the interpretational problem is more detailed than in most other books. Topics covered include Clebsch-Gordon and Racah coefficients, 9-j symbols and spherical tensors, representational theory, boundary-value problems, Fermi gas model of the nuclei, Klein-Gordon (both real and imaginary mass) and Weyl equations, elementary matter particles and fields, Higg’s mechanism and Higg’s boson gauge invariance and gauge fields, Feynman diagrams, Normal products and Wick’s theorem. The EPR paradox and its explanations, Hidden-variable theories and Bell?s inequality are explained.A number of problems are included wih a view to supplementing the text

V K Thankappan is an Ex-Professor of Physics from the University of Calicut. After taking the BSc (Hons.) degree in Physics from the Kerala University in 1958 with a first class and the first rank, he joined the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, where he did research in Nuclear Physics under the guidance of Dr. S P Pandya for his PhD degree (awarded by Gujarat University) until 1962. Between 1962 and 1967, he did Post-doctoral research successively at the University of California, Davis, the Indiana University, Bloomington, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. He joined the Physics Faculty of the Kurukshetra University in 1967 and left in 1976 to join the Faculty of the University of Calicut, from where he retired in 1994. After retirement, he worked at the Physics Department of the Cochin University of Science and Technology on a Book-Writing Project funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (The book written under the project, entitled: Quantum Mechanics through problems, was published by New Age International in 2002).

His contributions in the field of research include works on the Core-Excitation (Thankappan-True) Model of odd-mass nuclei, the Feynman postulates in quantum mechanics, Imaginary-mass Klein-Gordon equation and the EPR Paradox.

He is a Life Member of the Indian Association of Physics Teachers.