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I'm wondering if it's possible to give a concise description that's understandable and is not as long as a book. I don't want to waste time reading the book "Principles of quantum mechanics" because I might still not understand it. I had a lot of trouble understanding the "Differential equations" textbook so I might have trouble understanding that book as well. I also had trouble understanding the Wikipedia article Schrödinger equation.

According to the Wikiquote article, Shut up and calculate, there is a standard on how to make calculations in quantum mechanics and how to interpret them. I believe one quantum theory that includes nuclear chemistry but not gravity has a standard on how to perform calculations and how to interpret some of them as a classical macroscopic event. I believe that that standard for making calculations can be simplified to another standard that gives rise to an entirely different simplified quantum mechanical theory that doesn't talk about nuclear chemistry at all that can explain hybridization of orbitals and wave functions and is relativistic. My question is

Is the last sentence true? If so, would it be possible for you to give me a really long slow understandable description that leads to an explanation of how to make calculations and how to interpret them as a classical macroscopic event and why they're interpreted that way that can be as long as you want as long as it's not longer than the typical length of a book. If it's not possible, then could you instead tell me whether it is easy to start learning somewhere and get to the point after which that book can will clearly explain quantum mechanics in an understandable way? According to this answer, it might not always be possible just from books. If the last sentence before this question is not true, what is the correction to the sentence I stated?

I don't see why we couldn't get some of the Stack Exchange users to each rarely and occasionally devote so much more time than usual to one question with different users picking different questions to devote a huge amount of time to. If that's possible, then maybe somebody will devote so much time to this question that they can give a satisfactory answer. I was interested in quantum mechanics for a long time. If as I start reading the answer, I can see that I'm able to understand what I'm reading, I probably will gradually keep reading more and more of it. At the moment, I have only one question that I want such a long answer for so I probably would eventually read the whole answer even if it's really long as long as I feel like I'm able to understand it as soon as I start reading it and don't get lost as I continue reading struggling to figure out what the answer is saying.

ZeroTheHero
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Timothy
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    This seems far too broad for this site - you're asking for an answer to cover entire textbooks. If you don't have any previous exposure to quantum mechanics and dislike textbooks, I'd recommend searching for lecture notes or recordings. – jacob1729 Jan 14 '20 at 03:08
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    We really don't have the time to cover whole textbooks! You might elicit a long answer if you put a huge bounty on, but nothing approaching a whole book. – knzhou Jan 14 '20 at 03:16
  • Physics Stack Exchange does allow for in-depth presentations. They are posed as questions, and the questioner him or herself provides an answer that others can contribute to. This type of Q&A is call community wiki. The one's I've seen are good. Here's an example. – garyp Jan 14 '20 at 03:42
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    As far as I am concerned, the problem here isn’t that the OP wants a long answer. The problem is: an answer to what? The OP doesn’t explain their current level of understanding (only what they don’t understand) or what exactly they want explained. I find the question extremely vague and confusing. The OP wants to understand relativistic orbital hybridization but doesn’t understand particle-in-a-box? And thinks that there is a classical way to understand QM? – G. Smith Jan 14 '20 at 03:46
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    Timothy, the usual way to understand QM is to start by understanding very simple systems, much simpler than relativistic multi-electron atoms. The basic principles of QM are all present in even these simple systems, like a single non-relativistic particle trapped in a one-dimensional box. I suggest that you start by learning about this system, which has similarities to a classical vibrating violin string. However, there is no classical way to understand QM. – G. Smith Jan 14 '20 at 03:56
  • Also, the usual sequence is to learn about classical waves and the wave equation, in the context of mechanical waves and electromagnetic. waves. This background would help you understand the Schrodinger equation, which in some sense is just saying kinetic energy plus potential energy is total energy, in a quantum-mechanical way. However, you need to acquire a decent understanding of multivariable calculus and differential equations somewhere along the way. Studying linear algebra will also be helpful to understand eigenvectors and eigenvalues. There are no real shortcuts to understanding QM. – G. Smith Jan 14 '20 at 04:56
  • That "usual calculational method" is written in Shankar's Ch. 4 of principles of quantum mechanics. If you want to read it. Thing is, there are issues with measurement that don't allow it to be clearly interpreted. And in some cases cause issues with calculations. So it's not as clear as you wrote. – doublefelix Jan 14 '20 at 09:07

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Believe what you may, the sentence

I believe that that standard for making calculations can be simplified to another standard that gives rise to an entirely different simplified quantum mechanical theory that doesn't talk about nuclear chemistry at all that can explain hybridization of orbitals and wave functions and is relativistic.

is unlikely to be true

  1. if you think that reading a standard textbook is a waste of time,
  2. given the range of phenomenon explained by the theory exposed in the standard textbooks.

There are some elementary texts explaining (slowly but not so concisely) how quantum mechanics work (see this one for instance) and if you can't get past that then suggesting you can replace the standard theory with a theory of your own is something done at your own risk.

ZeroTheHero
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