Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition)

After reading some critics, i feel like contributing to defend this text. First, when is this book useful? Based on the American educational system: when you're an undergrad student in physics, that is when you've already been exposed to the origins of quantum mechanics through a class often called "modern physics", and have some basics in calculus and linear algebra. But most importantly: if you intend to study physics further, because if you're just in for a tasting go for Susskind's or something similar. Now if you're a demanding or unusually advanced undergraduate student: relax !!! You will get to read many other books about QM so don't ask this one to be what it's not claiming to be: This is not an advanced text and by no means sufficient by itself if you're really committed to studying physics; it is not completely introductory either in the sense that you won't learn about the history of the subject or won't get a purely axiomatic, rigorous approach either. It is designed to make you USE quantum mechanics, sometimes (yes!) even before it tells you what you're doing, so that part of your deeper understanding is built out of your own experience studying examples or working through problems. This said, it also provides good insights and often takes the simplest route to make a point, with a language that i find as entertaining and clear as in his E&M book. Now studying QM will always be a tricky business because there are so many ways to approach the subject and try to make sense of it, while our brain is truly wired for classical mechanics. You will find the book that does it for you at some point but will have to read several of them no matter what: if you don't get a kick out of this one go somewhere else, but i personally found it extremely helpful and clear. My graduate text was Weinberg, which is fantastic when you're an advanced grad student but almost unreadable when you're not and i heavily relied on Griffiths and some other, popular intermediate books, to help decipher it. So this is a truly intermediate text and will take you to the meatier treatments of such as Sakurai, Merzbacher, Cohen-Tannoudji and others like a charm; if not, then just go straight to them. And if you're a Vulcan or a mathematician go straight to Weinberg! Good luck

Many people (actually just physicists) are rude to those who have learned the wonders of Quantum Mechanics from Griffiths. They say that the treatment lacks some of the mathematical rigor that you see in Shankar or Townsend (the two main competitors in the Intro to Quantum market). But — even if you take that as true (which I and many others wouldn't agree with) — that might actually just speak to this book's strength. Griffiths writes with a gusto and wit normally reserved for an investigative report rather than a physical explication. He makes quantum come alive. There is a common refrain among physics students that Professors lose the forest for the trees. They give you the tools (the matrices, the operators, the commutators) to see the probability of a given state, but they avoid talking about its consequence. Too often, students come out of physics classes with symbols in their toolboxes, but no real-world applications in their minds. Physics describes the universe. As much as many would try to remove it from such a noble, but dirty, pursuit they cannot. When I learn about quantum tunneling I appreciate an explanation that gives the formulae needed and then goes a step further and answers "why?" Why did that initial state lead to this final state? Why is the result not expected? Why does this result affect things in the world? Griffiths made that textbook. He answers the hard whys behind the mathematical ingenuity. Those whys are why we study physics and how we grow to become a better next generation of physicists. And for that reason, I give this textbook 5 stars.

This is an excellent textbook to get started with quantum mechanics, especially if your self-learning. The author writes in a very clear and informative prose by keeping concepts and theories short but detailed.The problems are useful and solutions to the problems are easy to find via the internet or student solutions manual. If your a graduate student conducting research in a field in which QM concepts and terms are readily used, but you do not have a undergraduate background in QM from physics or chemistry (i.e. materials science and engineering); quickly working through this textbook will bring you up-to-speed. As the title states this is an introductory text and omission of advanced topics and even some concepts which would be considered as essential, might be missing. This is where a book like R. Shankar's QM book might be better suited.Finally, the price for the economy edition makes it an affordable buy for your bookself, although the appendix is not included.

Ok this is probably the most standard text for introduction to quantum mechanics courses.Griffths is a good writer and teacher!The book "speaks" to you as if Griffiths is there in front of you and lecturing.Quantum mechanics problems can be really really hard and LONG!!!so that's what this book has in for you!some problems are simple, but others will make you wish you had never been a physicist.Its in QM nature that problems are hard and long.The theory in each section is explained in an excellent and clear way.Every word in this text counts towards your understanding of QM concepts.The author knows its an intro to QM, yet should rely on heavy math to make the student appreciate the true "mathematical" nature of QM and the book is written accordingly to these standards.But there is no book that will give you everything at your first read: you will need to spend lots of time working on problems, going back to theory, re-read, re-understand. re-do problems...and goes on and on.So what i want to say is that no QM book is perfect and do not expect to master concepts just from this book.use other books aside from this to get a clearer understanding.In general the book is greatly written, smart and interesting (hard!!!) problems at each section. However, there are some flaws (which as a graduate student I had to deal with..).First, sometimes Griffiths skips some major steps when deriving important equations which can confuse the student.For example, in chapter 6 where he derives the fine structure equations for hydrogen he skips crucial math-steps of how he is getting the results.Also the equations for the weak/strong field Zeeman effect are not stated in clarity.Rather than,the equations are scattered within 2-3 previous subsections, and makes the student constantly flipping pages and trying to "connect" the dots. The intermediate Zeeman effect and Hyperfine structure is explained briefly which i think it's a topic which should have given more emphasis: like how to work on the matrix elements, and how can someone determine the "good" and "bad" quantum states appropriate for each case.

Griffiths is a great writer, with a sense of humor that shines through some pretty heinous maths, clearly explained. The discussion of the philosophical realm of quantum mechanics, with wierdness and paradoxes, is accessible and clear while being great food for thought and a stimulating starting point. Like with many physics texts, we get the sarcastic "it is left to the reader to prove", with a deferral to the excercises instead of a detailed proof or explanation. In this text it only happens when it would really be of benefit to do the problems, unlike in some other texts where the omissions in the chapter smell of condescension, or worse, of laziness of omission. This was my college textbook for two successive courses, but it also proved to be fun reading.

I my opinion this is an awful book for an introduction to quantum mechanics, for the following reasons. First of all, Griffths loves verbosity and footnotes. Griffiths can go on talking about a concept for pages and still manages to leave out important concepts, which, if you want to read, you have to read the footnotes. In my opinion this is very ineffective, because it breaks the flow of exposition. If something is important, it should be put in the text itself. Second, Griffiths lacks mathematical rigor. I know, this is a physics book, but often, having a clear rigorous mathematical exposition helps understanding the physical concepts, too. More than often, Griffiths will just use words like, "Fourier's trick", or diabolically clever trick, etc, making it sound like these are not well developed mathematical methods, but rather accidents. Third, poor coverage of Dirac notation. As far as I know, Dirac notation is pretty standard notation in quantum mechanics. Griffiths covers, and not so well either, Dirac notation in two pages and then almost never uses it again in the following chapters, almost having you wonder why he introduced it in the first place. On a positive note, some of the problems at the end of the chapters are really good and Griffiths is generally pretty good at giving physical justifications, but overall, his physical insight is buried under a mound of jargon and footnotes. For and undergraduate treatment, Townsend's book seems much superior to me.

Not a bad introductory quantum mechanics text. The good: Griffiths' writing style makes the material more easily readable, there are few typos, a broad variety of applied subjects in part II, and a thorough explanation of general theory in part I. The bad: Griffiths' previously mentioned writing style is pretty informal, filling important space for explanations with attempts at trite humor. Much of the basic mathematical background is over-explained, frequently lacking sufficient explanation of more rigorous math subjects presented in the text. Griffiths offers proofs at his leisure, and their extent/quality is highly variable. He is NOT a mathematician. The mathematical "tampering" which is often encountered in quantum mechanics is given almost no explanation nor physical significance. I found this particularly annoying, since it's part of what makes the subject so interesting and baffling (in my opinion). Lastly, the whole first chapter fails to motivate the subject. The background of the creation of quantum mechanics, WHY its formulation was necessary, is completely absent. The Schrodinger equation is obviously of crucial importance, but busting it out on the first page is both unnecessary and premature. He mentions that the Schrodinger equation is another way of representing F = m*a, but fails to provide its origins (the differential wave equation) and its other important implications (non-relativistic, etc.). The fundamental equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics should be presented much more thoroughly. In summary, although it seems the bad outweighs the good, this text will prepare students to DO quantum mechanics (as Griffiths points out in the foreward) without question, and will also prepare students for graduate school quantum mechanics. Here's the bottom line: IF: you already have a strong background in modern physics, particle wave duality, etc, and are not too concerned with mathematical formalism/explanation, this will be a great quantum mechanics text for you. IF: you don't know much about the invention of quantum mechanics or the progression of late 19th - early 20th century modern physics, are bothered by "lazy" mathematics, and are looking for deeper physical context, you should probably consider another text.

I have read my fair share of "intro" texts on quantum and most suffer from being either too general (perhaps covering no more than the infinite square well), or too detailed (a weighty tome that contains the entire collective knowledge of all things quantum). This text stands apart because it falls just about in the middle. This text should be just about perfect for a motivated advanced undergraduate/beginning graduate student. It starts out slowly by developing some basic ideas about probabilities (including the standard mean/mode/median, then introducing the probability density function, expectation values, standard deviations, etc.), then dives into everyones first problem in QM: the infinite potential well. From there you encounter the finite square well, the delta potential, double delta potential (my 1st "WHOOAAAAAAA!" moment in QM), finally culminating in the all important harmonic oscillator and the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom. After that the book switches direction and introduces some of the really important achievements of QM: the hydrogen atom (briefly), the section on perturbation theory prepares you for later sections on energy level splitting and hyperfine splittling. I read the text from cover to cover and find myself re-reading and re-working problems for fun because this book is a joy to read and learn from. Can't recommend it highly enough!

O livro é excelente. A forma que o autor escreve é leve e prazeirosa. As vezes meio que "joga" as coisas, mas o autor deixa claro, no prefácio, que a linha é aprender a usar e depois buscar uma maior compreensão. Portanto cabe uma complementação com outros livros que esclarece melhor de onde as coisas vem. Vale a pena compra-lo em inglês devido a menor número de erros tipográficos.

This is a wierd edition of the book, because it is very expensive, is missing chapters, plus is printed in a very small font that takes up only half of the page.... stay away from this edition

Comprehensive, well structured, lucid plus ellaborate writing style and illustrations which is something you might know the author for if you have gone through another of his masterpiece-'Introduction to Electrodynamics'. Overall, a very stimulating and satisfactory learning experience. If you're buying a book on QM, it has to be this one!

ottimo testo per chi ne sa almeno qualcosina di fisica ovviamente, l'introduzione è abbastanza lineare e prevede riferimenti alla fisica classica, lo consiglio vivamente a tutti

Excelente libro como una introducción de la mecánica cuántica. Mucho mejor que el Cohen tannudji aunque esté sea mucho más completo. El pedido llegó bastante antes de lo previsto.