Maxima by Example, Ch. 12, Dirac Algebra and Quantum Electrodynamics

On 9-15-1010 Alfonso Zerwekh wrote:

> Great job !!!!  Wonderful package ! I have dreamed
> for years with the  possibility of making Particle 
> Physics calculations in Maxima. It is  worth to be 
> included as an standard package in future Maxima
>  versions.
> Thank you very much
>

Hi Alfonso,

When I first got interested in Maxima, I read some
stories about a Dirac gamma algebra package that 
existed in the DOE version but was pulled out
by Wolfram.

I also read a few inquiries from physics types
who were looking for something.

So, it seemed like a good project for my
Maxima by Example series of tutorials.

One of my goals is to write tutorials with
enough quality that instructors will be
attracted to Maxima as a teaching and
research tool.

I made a conscious choice to work on this
before lower level stuff like classical 
mechanics and electrodynamics, 
quantum mechanics, etc.

Thanks for your interest, and let me
know when the program doesn't work, since
I am always available to cure bugs.
The code was written to be read like a
novel, with a lot of comments, and commented
out debug printouts, which make it relatively
easy to go back and find bugs.

Also, I think that writing stuff like this
in Maxima code (rather than Lisp) makes it
easier for newcomers to Maxima to modify the
code for their own research projects.

Maxima is both a great resource and
fun to use, especially in batch mode.

Best Wishes,

Ted Woollett

http://www.csulb.edu/~woollett