This book develops the subject from the basic principles of quantum mechanics. The emphasis is on a single statement of the ideas underlying the various approximations that have to be used and care is taken to separate sound arguments from conjecture. This book is written for the student of theoretical physics who wants to work in the field of solids and for the experimenter with a knowledge of quantum theory who is not content to take other people's arguments for granted. The treatment covers the electron theory of metals as well as the dynamics of crystals, including the author's work on the thermal conductivity of crystals which has been previously published in English.

"I.E. Tamm" is one of the great figures of 20th century physics and the mentor of the late A.D. Sakharov. Together with I.M. Frank, he received the Nobel Prize in 1958 for the explanation of the Cherenkov effect. This book contains a commented selection of his most important contributions to the physical literature and essays on his contemporaries - Mandelstam, Einstein, Landau, and Bohr - as well as his contributions to Pugwash conferences. About a third of the selections originally appeared in Russian and are, to our knowledge, for the first time now available to Western readers. This volume includes a preface by Sir Rudolf Peierls, a biography compiled by Tamm's former students, V.Ya. Frenkel and B.M. Bolotovskii, and a complete bibliography.

This book develops the subject from the basic principles of quantum mechanics. The emphasis is on a single statement of the ideas underlying the various approximations that have to be used and care is taken to separate sound arguments from conjecture.