Product Description

This book provides the most comprehensive mathematical treatment to date of the Feynman path integral and Feynman's operational calculus. It is accessible to mathematicians, mathematical physicists and theoretical physicists. Including new results and much material previously only available in the research literature, this book discusses both the mathematics and physics background that motivate the study of the Feynman path integral and Feynman's operational calculus, and also provides more detailed proofs of the central results.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1299984 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 792 pages

Review
"A most scholarly text which is comprehensive, detailed and very clearly written. It embraces the whole of the topic not just one part of it, and the historical references give an insight into the development of the ideas behind this fascinating approach to quantum theory. Written by experts who are also good teachers."--Aslib Book Guide
"The idea behind the Feynman path integral goes back to a paper by P. A. M. Dirac published in 1933 in Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion. It formed the core of Richard Feynman's space-time approach to quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Although the path integral was not mathematically well defined, it was widely used in quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, and string theory. Recently, path integrals have been the heuristic guide to spectacular developments in pure mathematics. It was clear to Feynman that his 'path integral' was no integral in the ordinary sense of the word, and that what he called its 'summation over histories' did not involve a measure in the usual sense. ... The book by Johnson and Lapidus deals with various approaches to making the Feynman path integral into a mathematically meaningful object. ... I would recommend this book to serious students of the subject ..."--Physics Today