Product Description

This book is a modern pedagogic introduction to the ideas and techniques of quantum field theory. After a brief overview of particle physics and a survey of relativistic wave equations and Lagrangian methods, the quantum theory of scalar and spinor fields, and then of gauge fields, is developed. The emphasis throughout is on functional methods, which have played a large part in modern field theory. The book concludes with a brief survey of ‘topological’ objects in field theory and, new to this edition, a chapter devoted to supersymmetry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #173788 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 507 pages

Review
‘It is very strongly recommended to anyone seeking an elementary introduction to modern approaches to quantum field theory.’ Physics Bulletin

Customer Reviews

Pretty good but there are better ones
This was my first text in quantum field theory. And learned a great deal from it in grad school. I bought several QFT books since then. While this book is detailed (semi-proof of renormalizability of QED etc.), it doesn't really discuss the concepts behind it very much, like what is the physical meaning of 'second quantization' and why do it at all. A better introduction, I think is Kaku's Quantum Field Theory, with more legible typefaces, clear exposition of the concepts so you will remember things better later on and lots of examples. Some might say it's easier, but kaku's book taught me something beyond the technical aspects of QFT. But still, Ryder's book is much better than a lot of other books on QFT.

it could have been better
Lewis Ryder's Quantum Field Theory is a strange book: the chapter about single-particle equations is probably the best in the literature, but the chapters about quantisation are poor. Also there are no exercises in the book, and I think that every serious physics book should contain some exercises and questions.