Most popular books about quantum physics fall into one of two groups. Some describe the experiments and the arguments about what they mean, with no equations at all. Others teach a slimmed-down version of the actual mathematics. Which group you want depends on whether you want to know what quantum physics says about the world or how physicists get their predictions out of it.
The eight books below are ordered by how much math they ask of you, starting with none. All of them are written for readers without a physics degree. At the end I say where to go when you want a real textbook.
| Book | Published | Pages | Math |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Orzel, How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog | Scribner, 2010 | 256 | None |
| 2. Feynman, QED | Princeton, 1985 (rev. 2014) | 190 | None, arrows instead of equations |
| 3. Becker, What Is Real? | Basic Books, 2018 | 384 | None |
| 4. Ball, Beyond Weird | U. of Chicago Press, 2018 | 377 | None |
| 5. Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden | Dutton, 2019 | 368 | Almost none |
| 6. Rovelli, Helgoland | Riverhead, 2021 | 233 | None |
| 7. Susskind and Friedman, The Theoretical Minimum | Basic Books, 2014 | 384 | Vectors, complex numbers, taught in the book |
| 8. Carroll, Quanta and Fields | Dutton, 2024 | 304 | Real equations, explained step by step |
Page counts from publisher or retailer listings, October 2026. Library catalogues often give a lower number because they count only the main text.
1. Chad Orzel, How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog
Orzel is a physics professor, and the book is written as conversations with his dog Emmy, who wants to know whether quantum physics will help her catch squirrels. Behind the joke it covers the standard topics carefully: wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, entanglement, tunneling, the many-worlds idea and quantum computing. It is the lightest book here and a good first one if you have never read anything about the subject.
2. Richard Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Four public lectures Feynman gave at UCLA in 1983 on quantum electrodynamics, the theory of light and electrons. Instead of equations he uses little arrows: each way an event can happen gets an arrow, you add the arrows, and the length of the result squared gives the probability. That is a faithful picture of how probability amplitudes work, and it is the same rule physicists use in their calculations. I know of no other popular book that shows the actual machinery of quantum theory this honestly without any formulas.
3. Adam Becker, What Is Real?
A history of the argument over what quantum mechanics means, from Bohr and Einstein to David Bohm, Hugh Everett and John Bell. Becker is critical of the Copenhagen interpretation and of how physicists for decades discouraged questions about it. Read it if you want to know why the interpretation question is still open and who was pushed aside for asking it.
4. Philip Ball, Beyond Weird
Ball is a science writer and former editor at Nature. His book argues that the usual popular descriptions (a particle is in two places at once, a cat is dead and alive) mislead more than they explain, and builds a different picture around information and what can be known about a system. It walks through the main interpretations without committing to one. A good second book after one of the gentler introductions.
5. Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden
Carroll, a physicist, makes the case for the many-worlds interpretation: the wave function never collapses, and every measurement splits the world into branches. The first half is one of the clearest explanations of wave functions, measurement and entanglement in any popular book. The later chapters move to his research on how space and time might emerge from quantum entanglement, which is more speculative and says so.
6. Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland
Rovelli starts in 1925 with Heisenberg on the island of Helgoland, where he worked out the first version of quantum mechanics, and then argues for his own relational interpretation: properties of an object exist only relative to another object it interacts with. It is the shortest book on this list and the most philosophical. Rovelli argues for one interpretation as firmly as Carroll argues for another, so the two make a good pair.
7. Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman, Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
Based on Susskind's Stanford lectures for adult learners. This is where the real math starts: state vectors, complex numbers, operators and the rules for measurement, all introduced inside the book. It starts with spin, the simplest quantum system, and builds up to entanglement and the harmonic oscillator. If you are willing to work through the formulas with a pencil, this book gets you closer to how physicists think about quantum mechanics than any of the books above.
8. Sean Carroll, Quanta and Fields
The second volume of Carroll's The Biggest Ideas in the Universe series, which grew out of his video lectures. It uses actual equations and explains every step, and covers more ground than Susskind: wave functions, measurement, entanglement, then quantum fields, symmetry, gauge theories and atoms. An appendix covers the Fourier transform. It is the only book on this list that reaches quantum field theory, the framework behind particle physics.
Which one to start with
- You have never read about quantum physics: Orzel, then Feynman.
- You want to know what the theory says about reality: Becker for the history, then Carroll and Rovelli for two opposing answers.
- You want to understand how the calculations work: Feynman first, then Susskind.
- You are comfortable with high-school math and want the widest view: Carroll's Quanta and Fields.
When you want a real textbook
After Susskind or Carroll's Quanta and Fields, the next step is an undergraduate textbook. My own No-Nonsense Quantum Mechanics (266 pages) was written for that step: it explains where the Schrödinger equation and the commutation relations come from and works through every calculation. It assumes calculus. The list of quantum mechanics textbooks for beginners compares it with Griffiths, Shankar and the others, and the self-study guide lays out a reading plan.