General equivalence of physical chemistry II and undergraduate courses in quantum mechanics I am a chemistry major with an interest in mathematical physics. I am planning to take physical chemistry II (currently in p-chem I) and I am wondering if physical chemistry II can be considered equivalent to a course in elementary quantum mechanics. The course is primarily related to quantum chemistry and includes solutions for the Schrodinger equation in multiple dimensions, as well as particle in box situations, etc. I have also taken partial differential equations, so I am wondering if it would be feasible to jump into a qunatum mechanics II course?
My question is a bit convoluted, so forgive me, but anyone who has taken chemistry and physics: will I glean enough QM from p-chem and PDE to take a dedicated quantum mechanics II course (topics in QM II being perturbation theory, entanglement, etc.)
This depends a lot of the specific classes. Based on my anecdotal evidence, I'd say the classes are quite different.
My anecdotal evidence is that as a physics major, QM 1 was one of the easiest upper division classes I took. Griffiths was super clear. QM 2 was a bit more complicated, but I still thought the material wasn't as difficult as other subjects.
Then my friends in chemistry often talked about pchem like it was the hardest, most confusing class they barely made it through. They also didn't really seem to have the same view of QM I had, and tended to talk about it as if it were overly complicated.
I got the sense that their class focused more on applications of the ideas than the underlying principles, and the people who struggled were trying to memorize the individual applications. I don't know if they would have recognized the material from my QM class.