So i'm writing this blog to vent some rage because i am fucking pissed right now. I am a 3rd year physics student, a touch behind in exams because our format fucking sucks but that's normal, but i do have good grades (i averagte 27/30 in exams). Until now.
I am seriously in the mood to fucking smash some shit and give up. I have a quantum mechanics exam coming up soon (first try is in two days but no way in hell i'm passing that), and it's beyond ridicolous. It's not that i don't know how to solve the excercises, I DONT FUCKING UNDERSTAND THE SOLUTION WHEN I READ IT. It's ridicolous. Plenty of completely insane math steps that NONE has ever taught me, in ANY class i have taken so far, wierd assumptions and tricks that you NEED to know to keep any kind of mental sanity...it's like, every problem is it's own insane shitstorm with a random trick to avoid insane shit, and every time the trick is different, makes no sense, and assumes math i don't know. I have studied for this exam for one year now, trying different books, asking plenty of classmates for help and studying with them....nothing. Fucking none of us gets it, or for the 3/4 complete geniouses it's just obvious.
During the "partial" test we took in September, out of 20 people, only 5 decided to actually hand in the test at the end. One fucking genious got a 30, 3 of us got a 20, one didn't pass. Fucking insane.
Seriously, fuck this shit. I have wasted one year and will be even more behind in exams because theoretical physics is batshit insane.
welcome to the world of uncertainty, may it one day die a long and painful death in the infinite void.
Quantum physics certainly will break your spirit, the mathematics is beyond insane and there is so much to know and remember. Just worry about passing, don't worry about passing well. The quantum world is obviously not the world for you (or 99% of everyone else on the planet) so take the exam, focus on scraping a pass and move on.
I'm sure you must have known going in to your degree that Quantum physics is just about the most difficult area of any science known to humans, definitely the most difficult to grasp and understand. Smarter men and women than you have put up their hands and said "Okay, I will never understand this". Every physicist I know or have met who works in the field have said something similar to "If you think you've understood it and you aren't completely baffled that the world can actually work like this, then you haven't understood it"
I wish you good luck with your exam and seriously.... don't stress too much. Even Einstein had trouble with quantum stuff.
p.s most people on the planet have trouble understanding E=MC2.... so don't feel bad if you haven't quite got your head around the equations for much more complex ideas like Dirac and Uncertainty. I know I haven't lol
2. year physics student myself so I can't quite comment on your issue. Did you try the Feynman books? I'm sure he has a book out there on quantum mechanics. He focuses a lot on explaining all the steps while solving a problem and in general he trys to make the reader understand what's going on rather than going "DATS WAT I DID TO SOLVE EZPZ" like in many other books on math/physics.
On January 24 2012 22:15 emythrel wrote: welcome to the world of uncertainty, may it one day die a long and painful death in the infinite void.
Quantum physics certainly will break your spirit, the mathematics is beyond insane and there is so much to know and remember. Just worry about passing, don't worry about passing well. The quantum world is obviously not the world for you (or 99% of everyone else on the planet) so take the exam, focus on scraping a pass and move on.
I'm sure you must have known going in to your degree that Quantum physics is just about the most difficult area of any science known to humans, definitely the most difficult to grasp and understand. Smarter men and women than you have put up their hands and said "Okay, I will never understand this". Every physicist I know or have met who works in the field have said something similar to "If you think you've understood it and you aren't completely baffled that the world can actually work like this, then you haven't understood it"
I wish you good luck with your exam and seriously.... don't stress too much. Even Einstein had trouble with quantum stuff.
I think that might be an unintentional paraphrase of Richard Feynman there.
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." From Wikiquote.
There's another one that's closer to your exact words, but I can't find it.
On January 24 2012 22:23 AmericanUmlaut wrote: Is it multiple choice? If so, just mark the questions with a superposition of all possible answers.
Hell no man. I fucking wish.
Honestly i am not trying to have some deep insight in quantum physics. All i am asking for is, it would be nice if i could understand a problem when i have the fucking solution written there. At least the math used, if not the reasoning. Nop, none of that shit. Goddamn it.
On January 24 2012 22:15 emythrel wrote: welcome to the world of uncertainty, may it one day die a long and painful death in the infinite void.
Quantum physics certainly will break your spirit, the mathematics is beyond insane and there is so much to know and remember. Just worry about passing, don't worry about passing well. The quantum world is obviously not the world for you (or 99% of everyone else on the planet) so take the exam, focus on scraping a pass and move on.
I'm sure you must have known going in to your degree that Quantum physics is just about the most difficult area of any science known to humans, definitely the most difficult to grasp and understand. Smarter men and women than you have put up their hands and said "Okay, I will never understand this". Every physicist I know or have met who works in the field have said something similar to "If you think you've understood it and you aren't completely baffled that the world can actually work like this, then you haven't understood it"
I wish you good luck with your exam and seriously.... don't stress too much. Even Einstein had trouble with quantum stuff.
I think that might be an unintentional paraphrase of Richard Feynman there.
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." From Wikiquote.
it is actually a paraphrase of a very famous quote from John Wheeler or Neils Bohr (spelling?) if memory serves. Its something parroted by many many physicists, usually not in its original form, as a way of saying "Don't feel bad if you don't understand it".
On January 24 2012 22:27 Slakkoo wrote: Didnt Feynman also say "Shut up and calculate" Because if you try to understand it or whatever you are more into philosphy than physics
not sure if it was Feynman, but yes..... you are correct
"If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them. Niels Bohr
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet. Niels Bohr"
On January 24 2012 22:30 SeaSwift wrote: Here we go, thanks emythrel:
"If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them. Niels Bohr
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet. Niels Bohr"
No worries, its a great quote and I can never remember it exactly lol. I assume most physics students/professors have the same issue because I've never heard it quoted right in my entire adult life lol.
My first day of A-Level physics I remember my teacher writing it up on the board and saying in a very thick Scottish accent "remember that, you will need it in the future. Now lets talk about William Wallace" and then he preceded to teach us about forces using a stick man of William Wallace being tortured by the English lol
lol I remember feeling the same way my univ decided that it would be a good idea to have the mathematics in physics papers equivalent to one level above that in math. Hence, when doing my stage 3 quantum physics paper the math required was essentially a primer for a graduate paper in functional analysis t.t;
On January 24 2012 22:41 Plexa wrote: lol I remember feeling the same way my univ decided that it would be a good idea to have the mathematics in physics papers equivalent to one level above that in math. Hence, when doing my stage 3 quantum physics paper the math required was essentially a primer for a graduate paper in functional analysis t.t;
Was there any logic behind this or was it just stupidity?
On January 24 2012 22:41 Plexa wrote: lol I remember feeling the same way my univ decided that it would be a good idea to have the mathematics in physics papers equivalent to one level above that in math. Hence, when doing my stage 3 quantum physics paper the math required was essentially a primer for a graduate paper in functional analysis t.t;
Was there any logic behind this or was it just stupidity?
Sheer stupidity in my case. They tried making the physics department more "modern" in Italy lately, by adopting the 3+2 model that is used in every other university across europe, with the result that the classes are completely fucked up. One now does quantum mechanics while doing classical mechanics (seriously for the first 2 months none told me wtf a Hamiltonian was) and complex analysis/hilbert spaces.
They also teach us quantum mechanics and structure of matter (essentially applied quantum mechanics) before chemistry, so you spend one year and a half solving shroedinger's equation and calculatin weave functions, and then somebody starts telling you that electrons are kind of like clouds around the nucleus lol. Plus, in my particular college the mandatory math classes aren't structured too well, the calculus 3 exam has a bunch of useless shit in it when they could do more stuff that is actually used in physics, but nop. Damn it.
Also theoretical physicists assume you know a bunch of math that you have probably never heard about by default, just because yes.
ps i like how every time i try to type a quick answer it's turning into a rant lol. Back to studying and swearing. Thanks for the replies
Honestly, my university is good. The teachers are mostly competent (except 2 "special' cases i have met), the labs are good...it's just that a few years ago there was this one political reform of university which was completely idiotic and essentially forced the department to make some compromises that don't make sense. They imposed the 3+2 model when you realistically can NOT learn all the stuff you need for physics in 3 years.
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0
what's H and what's p what's m and what's g and delta and what's x and a??? g is gravity? p=potential? power? v(x) is vector of particle x? what is this shit? what's a dirac delta of potential? and whos Shroedinger why did he have to come up with this equation?
On January 24 2012 23:45 rei wrote: what's H and what's p what's m and what's g and delta and what's x and a??? g is gravity? p=potential? power? v(x) is vector of particle x? what is this shit? what's a dirac delta of potential? and whos Shroedinger why did he have to come up with this equation?
The only friend he had was this cat he kept trying to kill, so he tried to pass the time by doing maths instead.
I got my physics degree but couldn't pass again if I tried. And yes, it's unfair but not unexpected that the math is ridiculous. You're supposed to be learning independently at this point and spending your free time solving as many math problems as possible. Why we do this to ourselves or why any of us choose to be physicists considering the low pay... I'll never know.
I took quantum mech in my 2nd year... oh the joy hahaha. I think I was okay with the materials for about 6 lectures (okay as in I don't 'completely understand' but I can still 'agree and follow'), then for some reason I slept through the 6th or 7th, then everything didn't make sense afterwards. Somehow managed to pass it, honestly I didn't know what the fuck I was writing down as solutions on my exam.
So yeah... just study it over and over, and write down whatever comes to your mind on paper...
On January 25 2012 00:01 ~ava wrote: I got my physics degree but couldn't pass again if I tried. And yes, it's unfair but not unexpected that the math is ridiculous. You're supposed to be learning independently at this point and spending your free time solving as many math problems as possible. Why we do this to ourselves or why any of us choose to be physicists considering the low pay... I'll never know.
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0<x<a, infninity anywhere else. g is a constant.
I am certainly no genius of any description but this exercise seems pretty standard to me. Delta potentials are almost obligatory. I remember having single and double Delta potentials on the exercise sheets, didn't you have that? What part of the math involved is giving you a headache? I mean, Hilbert spaces and all that stuff is pretty abstract but for most of the calculations you don't need an indepth knowledge of Functional Analysis, just skip it.
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0<x<a, infninity anywhere else. g is a constant.
I am certainly no genius of any description but this exercise seems pretty standard to me. Delta potentials are almost obligatory. I remember having single and double Delta potentials on the exercise sheets, didn't you have that? What part of the math involved is giving you a headache? I mean, Hilbert spaces and all that stuff is pretty abstract but for most of the calculations you don't need an indepth knowledge of Functional Analysis, just skip it.
Yeap pretty much this. It gets really interesting when you have an infinite series of Dirac potentials (simulates a Crystalline structure). Though the solution that it spits out is also a series, it can get pretty difficult.
For this you pretty much just solve as normal taking special care of matching the boundary conditions on either side of the Dirac potential. You need to integrate across the boundary to eliminate the Dirac and get something useable.
Finished my harder (quantum, mainly) third year physics last year, I'm just happy that I managed a score above 50%, considering most of the class failed the tests through the year... Just aim for a pass, and try to understand the basic fundamentals. Most of quantum is solving for eigenvalues, functions etc, so I would make damn sure you can do at least that basic math, before you try to tackle schrodinger and others equations. Don't even get me started on the probabilistic functions that are used - NOT FUN!
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0
I am certainly no genius of any description but this exercise seems pretty standard to me. Delta potentials are almost obligatory. I remember having single and double Delta potentials on the exercise sheets, didn't you have that? What part of the math involved is giving you a headache? I mean, Hilbert spaces and all that stuff is pretty abstract but for most of the calculations you don't need an indepth knowledge of Functional Analysis, just skip it.
It's pretty messy if the delta can be put where you damn well please inside the potential well. If it's in the middle then the even eigenfunctions are untouched and the odd ones get a phase because the first derivative is not continous (if i recall correctly, i did this 6 months ago). If it's anywhere in the well, calculating the exact eigenfunctions is annoying as hell.
The fun part is when i have to calculate the Laplace operator for an n-dimensional space in spherical coordinates. Why would you even ask such a thing is beyond me...
Good thing I'm neither a Physics or Mathematics major, I remember taking Physics at A levels and absolutely dreading every Quantum Mechanics lecture and tutorial. Despite an earlier interest in Shroedinger's experiment, I just couldn't handle the level of math that was involved, nor would I have understood why the answer had to be that way. I just gave up, skipped the whole topic all together for my A levels and concentrated more on the stuff that I could do.
On January 24 2012 22:03 Teoita wrote: Plenty of completely insane math steps that NONE has ever taught me, in ANY class i have taken so far, wierd assumptions and tricks that you NEED to know to keep any kind of mental sanity...it's like, every problem is it's own insane shitstorm with a random trick to avoid insane shit, and every time the trick is different, makes no sense, and assumes math i don't know.
This is exactly how I felt about a year ago!
I was a first year grad student (engineering) and came from an undergrad program that did not adequately prepare me. There were a lot of tricks that completely bowled me over. I managed to catch myself up, but not in time to save my grades. I needed a 3.2 to remain in the PhD program and I earned a 3.17. But that's ok. I learned more in those 9 months than most of my classmates did. Now I'm a second year masters student who is slowly picking up the tips and tricks that I should know in the future.
Overall, it's positive that you don't know or understand something. This gives you a lot of room for growth. This is WHY you're in school! This stuff is hard, but try and keep your head up and do your best.
I'm so glad my university's Modern Physics class was so watered down. It was a long time ago so I don't remember exactly why it was, I think it was designed specifically for non-Physics majors to take. They still required differential equations etc but somehow they made assumptions or something that made it not require too many different tricks. So the math required wasn't too horrible. From the simplifications they made I can imagine that the full-blown versions of those problems would have been quite terrifying!
There's nothing worse than trying to follow a mathematical procedure where they assume you know how to do a certain technique and just say "using blah blah technique, equations (1) and (2) obviously lead to equation (3)". I had this happen when I was reading a paper and trying to apply it to a different situation. Even after reading about the technique they used on Wikipedia (obv, where else? hah!), I gave up on it 3-4 times before a couple weeks later I tried again and finally got it.
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0<x<a, infninity anywhere else. g is a constant.
I am certainly no genius of any description but this exercise seems pretty standard to me. Delta potentials are almost obligatory. I remember having single and double Delta potentials on the exercise sheets, didn't you have that? What part of the math involved is giving you a headache? I mean, Hilbert spaces and all that stuff is pretty abstract but for most of the calculations you don't need an indepth knowledge of Functional Analysis, just skip it.
It's pretty messy if the delta can be put where you damn well please inside the potential well. If it's in the middle then the even eigenfunctions are untouched and the odd ones get a phase because the first derivative is not continous (if i recall correctly, i did this 6 months ago). If it's anywhere in the well, calculating the exact eigenfunctions is annoying as hell.
The fun part is when i have to calculate the Laplace operator for an n-dimensional space in spherical coordinates. Why would you even ask such a thing is beyond me...
It's true, Delta distributions are no fun sometimes And the Laplace oprator in n-dimensions is indeed quite mysterious. I have never come across that. Especially in an introduction to QM it seems totally out of place. I remember QM as the lecture in theoretical physics where it made click for me. Just keep on pushing, man. QM can be a ton of fun, actually. Good luck.
In uni whenever I faced a difficult problem like yours, I asked for help from fellow students, the professor or his assistant[s]. Only one time I had to take private lessons, because none of the above worked. Try those options, I'm sure at least one of them will work.
On January 24 2012 23:28 rei wrote: WTF i want to see some of these shit storm, Give us and example so we can all feel stupid together.
Solve Shroedinger's equation for a particle in an infinite well of potential, with a Dirac delta of potential that can be put anywhere in the box. H=p^2/2m+v(x)+g*delta(x-a), where v(x) = 0 for 0<x<a, infninity anywhere else. g is a constant.
You know, as an electrical engineer I actually understand that mostly. I'm not quite sure how to solve it. Isn't p = h*k in quantum theory? I know it's not classical momentum. I'm assuming that delta(x-a) is the dirac delta function at (x-a) which is nothing more than a sample of height 1 at point a. I'm not sure how that applies to quantum mechanics though, cause I've only seen it in signal processing.
On reading more of the thread.... it sounds like that's not the dirac delta function? I'm not sure what delta distribution is and if it's just the same thing.... oh lawdy lawd.
I'm really sorry for saying this, but you just made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. I'm an economy student (and I know, it's just a made up science, but sadly it does use the same math as physics when you major in mathematical analysis) and we were always outraged why anyone would expect us to understand shit that only physics students will ever get. (We used to call them mad scientists, but on a physics blog that's not the best idea, is it? :D) All our books on the more complex math were those of physics students', so when we tried to look anything up, it usually started with an example of heat transfering (I clearly remember this being on Fourier analysis) in a way that'd require another 3-4 hours to at least get an idea what it was all about.
On January 25 2012 01:39 Mindor wrote: I'm really sorry for saying this, but you just made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. I'm an economy student (and I know, it's just a made up science, but sadly it does use the same math as physics when you major in mathematical analysis) and we were always outraged why anyone would expect us to understand shit that only physics students will ever get. (We used to call them mad scientists, but on a physics blog that's not the best idea, is it? :D) All our books on the more complex math were those of physics students', so when we tried to look anything up, it usually started with an example of heat transfering (I clearly remember this being on Fourier analysis) in a way that'd require another 3-4 hours to at least get an idea what it was all about.
Oh Fourier analysis is easy, as long as you're not doing the integrals by hand. It's just a transformation from time to frequency. I'm not sure why you'd ever use it for economics...
Wow, it's interesting to me that you made it all the way to your third year in physics and your complaint in the QM class is how you need to use mathematics that you haven't learned yet. In my experience, that is almost always the case unless you're really far ahead in math. In almost every physics class I took we had to be comfortable doing mathematics that we formally didn't learn yet. It was only because I doubled as a math major that I formally learned the math (later on or at the same time).
This is not the usual complaint about physics majors in quantum mechanics. I think this is a good sign that you need to start reconsidering things if your issue in a high level physics class is the mathematics.
On January 25 2012 01:39 Mindor wrote: I'm really sorry for saying this, but you just made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. I'm an economy student (and I know, it's just a made up science, but sadly it does use the same math as physics when you major in mathematical analysis) and we were always outraged why anyone would expect us to understand shit that only physics students will ever get. (We used to call them mad scientists, but on a physics blog that's not the best idea, is it? :D) All our books on the more complex math were those of physics students', so when we tried to look anything up, it usually started with an example of heat transfering (I clearly remember this being on Fourier analysis) in a way that'd require another 3-4 hours to at least get an idea what it was all about.
Oh Fourier analysis is easy, as long as you're not doing the integrals by hand. It's just a transformation from time to frequency. I'm not sure why you'd ever use it for economics...
That's my point. We had an exam where we had to make the teacher explain us the physics behind the differential equation we were supposed to solve, because we couldn't understand the proposition. Now at least I can feel better that physicists weren't born with some astral knowledge and it's not as "self-explanatory" as we were lead to believe.
Fourier transform is used in statistics and probability theory, so it's not that far fetched. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with probability density functions (I'm horrible with names, I stopped remembering them at Pythagoras...I don't really get how logical people like mathematicists would call functions by a name that doesn't tell you what they do) and I'm sure that we used it in practice to create orthonormal bases for Hilbert spaces.
On January 25 2012 02:05 Zorkmid wrote: One day you're going to be 30, and be like....why the fuck did I take Quantum Mechanics?
You might cite the odd interested factoid, which is rockin' cool.
Yeah seriously OP, what are you trying to get out of a physics degree? I think the field is interesting but gl finding a job :/
I'm sorry, but I have to ask what kind of insight you have into the job market. A pyhsics degree is a great career move, at least where I come from. They're hired basically everywhere because they're trained problem solvers who are familiar with complicated math and often programming. Banks, insurances, stocks, logistics, you name it. Physicists and mathematicians can be found in almost every big company somewhere, trust me.
On January 25 2012 01:39 Mindor wrote: I'm really sorry for saying this, but you just made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. I'm an economy student (and I know, it's just a made up science, but sadly it does use the same math as physics when you major in mathematical analysis) and we were always outraged why anyone would expect us to understand shit that only physics students will ever get. (We used to call them mad scientists, but on a physics blog that's not the best idea, is it? :D) All our books on the more complex math were those of physics students', so when we tried to look anything up, it usually started with an example of heat transfering (I clearly remember this being on Fourier analysis) in a way that'd require another 3-4 hours to at least get an idea what it was all about.
Oh Fourier analysis is easy, as long as you're not doing the integrals by hand. It's just a transformation from time to frequency. I'm not sure why you'd ever use it for economics...
That's my point. We had an exam where we had to make the teacher explain us the physics behind the differential equation we were supposed to solve, because we couldn't understand the proposition. Now at least I can feel better that physicists weren't born with some astral knowledge and it's not as "self-explanatory" as we were lead to believe.
Fourier transform is used in statistics and probability theory, so it's not that far fetched. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with probability density functions (I'm horrible with names, I stopped remembering them at Pythagoras...I don't really get how logical people like mathematicists would call functions by a name that doesn't tell you what they do) and I'm sure that we used it in practice to create orthonormal bases for Hilbert spaces.
Honestly it sounds like physics departments just really suck at actually teaching anything. I'm taking a general relativity course and literally the first half the course is just pure math so we know how to solve everything in the physics later. And our department is pretty terrible overall (though this professor is great). Something tells me you guys picked poor schools for physics. Should've done engineering.
On January 25 2012 02:05 Zorkmid wrote: One day you're going to be 30, and be like....why the fuck did I take Quantum Mechanics?
You might cite the odd interested factoid, which is rockin' cool.
Yeah seriously OP, what are you trying to get out of a physics degree? I think the field is interesting but gl finding a job :/
I'm sorry, but I have to ask what kind of insight you have into the job market. A pyhsics degree is a great career move, at least where I come from. They're hired basically everywhere because they're trained problem solvers who are familiar with complicated math and often programming. Banks, insurances, stocks, logistics, you name it. Physicists and mathematicians can be found in almost every big company somewhere, trust me.
Physicists don't get jobs as physicists. You're better off with a math degree, and infinitely better off with an engineering degree. Maybe it's different across the pond, but here in the US nobody really does physics anymore because it's basically an engineering degree with no exposure to application. You only do it if you want to become an academic and go all the way to PhD.
On January 25 2012 02:31 MutatedMiracle wrote: So I'm a high school student considering taking physics in uni... stop scaring meeee
Physics is so much more than QP. Don't worry about it, the rest makes sense.
I've taken (and passed) Quantum Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Advanced Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Electronics courses but I've never had any use of it what so ever (didn't want to go for PhD). It's fun and a the math in AQM and QE is fun, when you practically have to learn new ways to integrate and calculate things by diagram rather than formulas.
You'll need a high threshold for "accepting" physics rather than being good at understanding it to pass any QP course. Accept the physics, learn the math, pass the test.
I'm doing research in particle physics, and have been teaching more or less this stuff (a bit below your level though, only first half year of QM, 2:nd year of the education, with ordinary square wells in 1D, no dirac deltas etc). I agree that this part is the first time (in most physics educations) where you run into really abstract things, so it requires a new kind of mindset to handle.
Most of previous physics is more intuitive, things you easily can imagine and have some understanding of from the start. For example you have some understanding for what pressure of a gas is, or kinetic energy etc. But the phase of an electron wavefunction? So it really puts your picture of physics to the test when you no longer deal just with quantities that have clear observable meanings.
Also it is essentially the first time you have to rely on more abstract mathematics. Are you doing this in a linear algebra formulation, or more of an integral formulation? ie, do the teachers refer to the electron state mainly as a vector or as a function? When I was teaching this, we used a book that was formulated in terms of functions and integrals, and barely mentioning the linear algebra, while I have always loved the beauty of the linear algebra formulation of quantum mechanics, although slightly more abstract.
Well, if you want some help with understanding these things, I may be able to give you a pointer or two, but it seems your intention is to just pass the exam. So good luck!
My High School teacher had a PhD in physics... why he taught high school he said, was because loved the way students in highschool treated physics with curiosity instead of in university where they all hated it and were miserable and he had his students dropping out even a month before they were done their degree. He taught the course at a higher level and when it came to grade 12 exams, even the students that had 40-50% in his class got 70+ on the final. He told me that I shouldn't go into physics unless I really wanted the feeling of blowing my brains out everyday. So im in Compsci now
Ahaha, this brings me back to my quantum mechanics course(s) in uni aswell. I remember on the final for quantum mechanics A, we had 3 hours to do the exam, but when time was up, nobody was more than half done, so the prof gave us two more hours, but still nobody was done, we just called it and left.
Switched to honors math, and it's been much of the same. bleh.
Geez this is ironic, I was just about to get started on my getting-ahead reading :/ I'm getting a masters in Chemistry but I've recently been quite drawn to my Uni's Physics Department's Quantum Mechanics courses (instead of the "The Quantum Theory of Matter" likely pussy Chemistry course equivalent).
Don't worry nobody understands quantum the first time they see it.
I only managed to solve for the Hamiltonian and the raising operators b/c they looked somewhat like linear. Pray that your classes in matrix algebra help you out (b/c they will).
Oh man this had me cracking up. This shit is so insane. All these words flowing around here that I have heard before but have no idea where. It just sounds crazy! Good luck to you mate.
heh, my second semester quantum was supposed to be easier than first semester... more math [operator stuff instead of calculus], but similar material (QHM, ladder operators, "supersymmetric method," etc.; basically a ton of commutators)
but I didn't put in enough time and got owned... managed to escape with a B though, heh.
Right now, you know you don't understand the solutions. Therefore, just cover the page. Eventually, you will both understand and not understand. That might be the best you can possibly do.
Ha! I have an Advanced Quantum Mechanics 3rd year exam tomorrow and I accidentally found this after blowing up and typing "FUCK QUANTUM MECHANICS" into google... Lifted my spirits a little after a day of fucking dreadful revision of bullshit maths.
How did it all go in the end? You said "first try" in your blog, are you allowed multiple attempts? We get 1 chance to get a proper mark, if we fail then you can only ever get a grade of 40%(a bag of shit in our system!) after that. I have to pass this module as well or I can't advance onto 4th year as it is a core topic
My current plan is to memorise the answers to the last 3 years worth of papers within the next hour before I go to bed and then hope to god that I don't have to go thru this all again for a resit in summer...
I took quantum mech 1 in fall 2012 semester (US university; my uni has a quantum I and quantum II) and I got super lucky as our grade was pretty much just problem sets and even take home tests.
I literally understood none of it but scrounged answers via googling/textbook best I could, such as the problems for wave functions/reflection+transmission coefficients for the delta potentials/double delta potentials/whatever potential, etc etc.
good thing I wasn't a physics major that had to actually learn the stuff properly. I had it as a tech elective.
quantum tricked you into thinking it would be fun. Day 1 and 2 was stuff about Stern Gerlach experiment, stuff that sounds fun, then jk do a million proofs of uncertainties/wave functions/harmonic oscillators using baker-hausdorff formula/virial theorem, etc etc.
EPT
my univ decided that it would be a good idea to have the mathematics in physics papers equivalent to one level above that in math. Hence, when doing my stage 3 quantum physics paper the math required was essentially a primer for a graduate paper in functional analysis t.t;
And the Laplace oprator in n-dimensions is indeed quite mysterious. I have never come across that. Especially in an introduction to QM it seems totally out of place. 
