# Quantum electrodynamics bibliography

fafnir.phyast.pitt.edu/py3765/ Phys3765 Advanced Quantum Mechanics -- QFT-I Fall 2012 by E.S. Swanson mentions several milestone texts including:

## Advanced quantum mechanics by Freeman Dyson (1951)

Lecture notes that were apparently very popular at Cornell University. In this period he was actively synthesizing the revolutionary bullshit Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger were writing and making it understandable to the more general physicist audience, so it might be a good reading.
We shall not develop straightaway a correct theory including many particles. Instead we follow the historical development. We try to make a relativistic quantum theory of one particle, find out how far we can go and where we get into trouble.

## Selected Papers on Quantum Electrodynamics by Julian Schwinger (1958)

Julian Schwinger's selection of academic papers by himself and others.

## Richard Feynman Quantum Electrodynamics Lecture at University of Auckland (1979)

Talk title shown on intro: "Today's Answers to Newton's Queries about Light".
6 hour lecture, where he tries to explain it to an audience that does not know any modern physics. This is a noble effort.
Part of The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures lecture series.
Feynman apparently also made a book adaptation: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. That book is basically word by word the same as the presentation, including the diagrams.
According to www.feynman.com/science/qed-lectures-in-new-zealand/ the official upload is at www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 and Vega does show up as a watermark on the video (though it is too pixilated to guess without knowing it), a project that has been discontinued and has has a non-permissive license. Newbs.
4 parts:
• Part 1: is saying "photons exist"
• Part 2: is amazing, and describes how photons move as a sum of all possible paths, not sure if it is relativistic at all though, and suggests that something is minimized in that calculation (the action)
• Part 3: is where he hopelessly tries to explain the crucial part of how electrons join the picture in a similar manner to how photons do.
He does make the link to light, saying that there is a function which gives the amplitude for a photon going from A to B, where A and B are spacetime events.
And then he mentions that there is a similar function for an electron to go from A to B, but says that that function is too complicated, and gives no intuition unlike the photon one.
He does not mention it, but P and E are the so called propagators.
This is likely the path integral formulation of QED.
On Quantum Mechanical View of Reality by Richard Feynman (1983) he mentions that is a bessel function, without giving further detail.
And also mentions that: $$E=f(1,2,m)P=f(1,2,0) (1)$$ where m is basically a scale factor. such that both are very similar. And that something similar holds for many other particles.
And then, when you draw a Feynman diagram, e.g. electron emits photon and both are detected at given positions, you sum over all the possibilities, each amplitude is given by: $$c×E(A,D)×E(D,B)×P(B,C) (2)$$ summed over all possible Spacetime points.
TODO: how do electron velocities affect where they are likely to end up? suggests the probability only depends on the spacetime points.
Also, this clarifies why computations in QED are so insane: you have to sum over every possible point in space!!! TODO but then how do we calculate anything at all in practice?
• Part 4: known problems with QED and thoughts on QCD. Boring.
This talk has the merit of being very experiment oriented on part 2, big kudos: how to teach and learn physics

## Quantum Mechanical View of Reality by Richard Feynman (1983)

Basically the same content as: Richard Feynman Quantum Electrodynamics Lecture at University of Auckland (1979), but maybe there is some merit to this talk, as it is a bit more direct in some points. This is consistent with what is mentioned at www.feynman.com/science/qed-lectures-in-new-zealand/ that the Auckland lecture was the first attempt.
By Mill Valley, CA based producer "Sound Photosynthesis", some info on their website: sound.photosynthesis.com/Richard_Feynman.html
They are mostly a New Age production company it seems, which highlights Feynman's absolute cult status. E.g. on the last video, he's not wearing shoes, like a proper guru.
Feynman liked to meet all kinds of weird people, and at some point he got interested in the New Age Esalen Institute. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman this kind of experience a bit, there was nude bathing on a pool that oversaw the sea, and a guy offered to give a massage to the he nude girl and the accepted.
youtu.be/rZvgGekvHest=5105 actually talks about spin, notably that the endpoint events also have a spin, and that the transition rules take spin into account by rotating thing, and that the transition rules take spin into account by rotating things.

## QED and the men who made it: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga by Silvan Schweber (1994)

This book has formulas on it, which is quite cool!! And the formulas are basically not understandable unless you know the subject pretty well already in advance. It is however possible to skip over them and get back to the little personal stories.