This book first teaches learners how to do quantum mechanics, and then provides them with a more insightful discussion of what it means. Fundamental principles are covered, quantum theory presented, and special techniques developed for attacking realistic problems. The book¿s two-part coverage organizes topics under basic theory, and assembles an arsenal of approximation schemes with illustrative applications. For physicists and engineers.
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Unlike Newton's mechanics, or Maxwell's electrodynamics, or Einstein's relativity, quantum theory was not created—or even definitively packaged—by one individual, and it retains to this day some of the scars of its exhilarating but traumatic youth. There is no general consensus as to what its fundamental principles are, how it should be taught, or what it really "means." Every competent physicist can "do" quantum mechanics, but the stories we tell ourselves about what we are doing are as various as the tales of Scheherazade, and almost as implausible. Niels Bohr said, "If you are not confused by quantum physics then you haven't really understood it"; Richard Feynman remarked, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."
The purpose of this book is to teach you how to do quantum mechanics. Apart from some essential background in Chapter 1, the deeper quasiphilosophical questions are saved for the end. I do not believe one can intelligently discuss what quantum mechanics means until one has a firm sense of what quantum mechanics does. But if you absolutely cannot wait, by all means read the Afterword immediately following Chapter 1.
Not only is quantum theory conceptually rich, it is also technically difficult, and exact solutions to all but the most artificial textbook examples are few and far between. It is therefore essential to develop special techniques for attacking more realistic problems. Accordingly, this book is divided into two parts; Part I covers the basic theory, and Part II assembles an arsenal of approximation schemes, with illustrative applications. Although it is important to keep the two parts logically separate, it is not necessary to study the material in the order presented here. Some instructors, for example, may wish to treat time-independent perturbation theory immediately after Chapter 2.
This book is intended for a one-semester or one-year course at the junior or senior level. A one-semester course will have to concentrate mainly on Part I; a full-year course should have room for supplementary material beyond Part II. The reader must be familiar with the rudiments of linear algebra (as summarized in the Appendix), complex numbers, and calculus up through partial derivatives; some acquaintance with Fourier analysis and the Dirac delta function would help. Elementary classical mechanics is essential, of course, and a little electrodynamics would be useful in places. As always, the more physics and math you know the easier it will be, and the more you will get out of your study. But I would like to emphasize that quantum mechanics is not, in my view, something that flows smoothly and naturally from earlier theories. On the contrary, it represents an abrupt and revolutionary departure from classical ideas, calling forth a wholly new and radically counterintuitive way of thinking about the world. That, indeed, is what makes it such a fascinating subject.
At first glance, this book may strike you as forbiddingly mathematical. We encounter Legendre, Hermite, and Laguerre polynomials, spherical harmonics, Bessel, Neumann, and Hankel functions, Airy functions, and even the Riemann zeta function—not to mention Fourier transforms, Hilbert spaces, hermitian operators, Clebsch-Gordan coefficients, and Lagrange multipliers. Is all this baggage really necessary? Perhaps not, but physics is like carpentry: Using the right tool makes the job easier, not more difficult, and teaching quantum mechanics without the appropriate mathematical equipment is like asking the student to dig a foundation with a screwdriver. (On the other hand, it can be tedious and diverting if the instructor feels obliged to give elaborate lessons on the proper use of each tool. My own instinct is to hand the students shovels and tell them to start digging. They may develop blisters at first, but I still think this is the most efficient and exciting way to learn.) At any rate, I can assure you that there is no deep mathematics in this book, and if you run into something unfamiliar, and you don't find my explanation adequate, by all means ask someone about it, or look it up. There are many good books on mathematical methods—I particularly recommend Mary Boas, Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York (1983), or George Arfken and Hans-Jurgen Weber, Mathematical Methods for Physicists, 5th ed., Academic Press, Orlando (2000). But whatever you do, don't let the mathematics—which, for us, is only a tool—interfere with the physics.
Several readers have noted that there are fewer worked examples in this book than is customary, and that some important material is relegated to the problems. This is no accident. I don't believe you can learn quantum mechanics without doing many exercises for yourself. Instructors should of course go over as many problems in class as time allows, but students should be warned that this is not a subject about which anyone has natural intuitions—you're developing a whole new set of muscles here, and there is simply no substitute for calisthenics. Mark Semon suggested that I offer a "Michelin Guide" to the problems, with varying numbers of stars to indicate the level of difficulty and importance. This seemed like a good idea (though, like the quality of a restaurant, the significance of a problem is partly a matter of taste); I have adopted the following rating scheme:
* an essential problem that every reader should study;
** a somewhat more difficult or more peripheral problem;
*** an unusually challenging problem, that may take over an hour.
(No stars at all means fast food: OK if you're hungry, but not very nourishing.) Most of the one-star problems appear at the end of the relevant section; most of the three-star problems are at the end of the chapter. A solution manual is available (to instructors only) from the publisher.
In preparing the second edition I have tried to retain as much as possible the spirit of the first. The only wholesale change is Chapter 3, which was much too long and diverting; it has been completely rewritten, with the background material on finite-dimensional vector spaces (a subject with which most students at this level are already comfortable) relegated to the Appendix. I have added some examples in Chapter 2 (and fixed the awkward definition of raising and lowering operators for the harmonic oscillator). In later chapters I have made as few changes as I could, even preserving the numbering of problems and equations, where possible. The treatment is streamlined in places (a better introduction to angular momentum it! Chapter 4, for instance, a simpler proof of the adiabatic theorem in Chapter 10, and a new section on partial wave phase shifts in Chapter 11). Inevitably, the second edition is a bit longer than the first, which I regret, but I hope it is cleaner and more accessible.
I have benefited from the comments and advice of many colleagues, who read the original manuscript, pointed out weaknesses (or errors) in the first edition, suggested improvements in the presentation, and supplied interesting problems. I would like to thank in particular P. K. Aravind (Worcester Polytech), Greg Benesh (Baylor), David Boness (Seattle), Burt Brody (Bard), Ash Carter (Drew), Edward Chang (Massachusetts), Peter Copings (Swarthmore), Richard Crandall (Reed), Jeff Dunham (Middlebury), Greg Elliott (Puget Sound), John Essick (Reed), Gregg Franklin (Carnegie Mellon), Henry Greenside (Duke), Paul Haines (Dartmouth), J. R. Huddle (Navy), Larry Hunter (Amherst), David Kaplan (Washington), Alex Kuzmich (Georgia Tech), Peter Leung (Portland State), Tony Liss (Illinois), Jeffry Mallow (Chicago Loyola), James McTavish (Liverpool), James Nearing (Miami), Johnny Powell (Reed), Krishna Rajagopal (MIT), Brian Raue (Florida International), Robert Reynolds (Reed), Keith Riles (Michigan), Mark Semon (Bates), Herschel Snodgrass (Lewis and Clark), John Taylor (Colorado), Stavros Theodorakis (Cyprus), A. S. Tremsin (Berkeley), Dan Velleman (Amherst), Nicholas Wheeler (Reed), Scott Willenbrock (Illinois), William Wootters (Williams), Sam Wurzel (Brown), and Jens Zorn (Michigan).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
155 of 162 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I used this text book for my undergraduate quantum mechanics class. In that class, we covered basically everything in Griffiths. I have since gone on to graduate school. I have found myself very well prepared and I still use Griffiths as a reference because it explains basic ideas and basic problems better than most other text books. More importantly, it provided me with a good foundation for further study.
This text book is a great introductory text book. It is a text book for students for whom quantum mechanics is a new subject. It is not a text book for people who already know any significant amount of quantum mechanics, nor is it a great text to use for independent study (unless you work the problems and have some way of checking yourself.)
Shankar is too advanced for most students new to the subject. It's also too much material to cover in a standard two semester course where the material is completely new. The only school I know of which uses it is Yale, and they count on students having a stronger background than most students at most schools have. Moreover, I know from personal experience that teachers at Yale focus on getting students to calculate the right answer rather than developing a solid understanding of the ideas behind the physics.
It's also too much material to cover in a standard two semester course where the material is completely new. Griffiths is designed such that it can be used for the quantum mechanics classes at most universities -- ie, if students haven't had every other physics class before they use this book or if some of their background is a little weak, they aren't screwed. This may not agree with some people's notions of how physics should be taught, but the reality is that you can't teach every physics class as if the students had already mastered every subject except that one. This is the reality at most universities.
The fact that this book is accessible does not make it bad. Physics is a wonderful, beautiful subject and we're being really stupid if we judge how "advanced" a book is by how difficult it is to understand. This is a suicidal attitude for our field. I've been reading physics books for a long time, and most of the ones which are difficult to read are difficult because they're not well written, not because the material is inherently difficult.
This book also cannot compensate for its misuse or for bad teaching. When I took the class, the teacher assigned some of the basic problems and some of the difficult problems. That way we made sure we knew the basics before we moved on to the difficult problems. If you're only doing the simple problems, it's your fault you're not getting anything out of it. If you're only doing the computationally difficult problems, you're missing some beautiful, simple examples. The physics is neither more real nor more important if it takes you a day to calculate rather than ten minutes.
This is a problem-centered book, but honestly, that's the way most of us learn. We don't remember things we read as well as we remember things we do. Similarly, new notation is not introduced until later because ideas are being developed first. Introducing too many things at once does not facilitate learning, only frustration. I suggest the people who think they already understand all of the ideas consider what Feynmann said -- "Nobody really understands quantum mechanics."
If you want answers, look them up. If you want to learn, use this book.
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I liked Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics a great deal. I liked his Electrodynamics book too. What I like most about Griffiths is that if something is important he will say so, if something is difficult he will say so, if something confounds everyone who sees it he will say so. Many other authors in physics pretend to be computers, and leave any intuition or feeling about the material they introduce entirely to the reader to learn for himself. We are not computers, we all understand things in very human ways, although I think the proud like to pretend everything is obvious to them and that personal comments such as Griffiths provides just insults their prodigous intelligence.
The only problem I have with the book is that the shmucks didn't put a single answer in there. That's why I didn't give it 5 stars. How are you supposed to learn it if you don't know where you might have gone wrong in your answers?
The only problem I have with the book is that the shmucks didn't put a single answer in there. That's why I didn't give it 5 stars. How are you supposed to learn it if you don't know where you might have gone wrong in your answers?
40 of 48 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I have read the first 4 chapters of the 1st Ed, and carefully looked at the 2nd. The book is an introduction to wave mechanics, starting with the Schrodinger Eq on the first page! It feels like he doesn't begin at the begining. He should at least give brief comments on the development of quantum ideas (both wave and matrix) and JUSTIFY why the wave approach is more suited as an introduction. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
All these jumps add up: when you try to work the problems you are working with wavefunctions like you've known them all your life! One could find this and that, but I was never sure how the results could be used (in an experimental setting for example). What system does this wavefunction represent, or at least approximate, give the reader some motivation for working on a problem for almost an hour.
I would also say the book is dull, because the author explains every single math step he takes. Sometimes it is helpful, but most of the time it kills the thrill. In places where things are harder to explain in details this approach is abandoned; in chapter 3 you'll find plenty of math rushed. In the 2nd Ed. the author breaks some of the more basic part of Ch. 3 into an appendix, but doesn't really improve on the writing. Apperantly it is believed that students of physics have never heard of seperation of variables but are at home with complex vector spaces. This is an unjustifiable approach. I bet if you take an average linear algebra course in US, you won't encounter: complex vector spaces, properties of hermitian matricies, not too much on diagonaliztion and change of basis. The 2nd Ed. does add 3-4 more examples in each chapter; that should save some problem solving time. But I am afraid important things such as properties of the wavefunction are still left as excercises. I was generally bored and sometimes confused in my time with book. Due to lack of interesting physical (ideal or real) examples, I felt like I was collecting ideas rather than exploring them. Also since every (easy) step is shown, the chapters desperately need a good summary. I usually read the summary before the chapter itself to get motivation. I think things mentioned above should be improved on. Schuam's outline book won't help you much with problems in this book, that book solves problems of a more general nature.
Towards perfection:
A good alternative is: "Quantum mechanics: a modern introduction' by Das and Melissinos (1986, Gordon and Breach). It is full of great physical examples. I call it an 'alternative' because its
introduction of wave mechanics is not as complete as Griffith-like books. The wave approach, taken by Griffiths, suits some problems better than others in applications (like the eight other approaches to QM ,including the vector) but it also gives a 'can't see the forest for the trees' felling, the vector approach goes to the heart of QM. Fear not though, Das and Melissinos do provide a good introduction to wave mechanics. The best replacement for Griffiths is, A.C. Phillips 'Intro to QM' (Wiley, 2003). This is a nice, clear, as physical as you can get with waves approach to QM. Another great (good as Das & Melissinos, but slightly less 'physical') book is H.C. Ohanian 'Principles of quantum mechanics' (1990, Prentice Hall) which is nice and clear unified (uses both waves and vectors) presentation of quantum mehcanics.
Ohanian's text makes an excellent companion to Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics, which is the the best book
ever written on Non-Relativistic QM.
All these jumps add up: when you try to work the problems you are working with wavefunctions like you've known them all your life! One could find this and that, but I was never sure how the results could be used (in an experimental setting for example). What system does this wavefunction represent, or at least approximate, give the reader some motivation for working on a problem for almost an hour.
I would also say the book is dull, because the author explains every single math step he takes. Sometimes it is helpful, but most of the time it kills the thrill. In places where things are harder to explain in details this approach is abandoned; in chapter 3 you'll find plenty of math rushed. In the 2nd Ed. the author breaks some of the more basic part of Ch. 3 into an appendix, but doesn't really improve on the writing. Apperantly it is believed that students of physics have never heard of seperation of variables but are at home with complex vector spaces. This is an unjustifiable approach. I bet if you take an average linear algebra course in US, you won't encounter: complex vector spaces, properties of hermitian matricies, not too much on diagonaliztion and change of basis. The 2nd Ed. does add 3-4 more examples in each chapter; that should save some problem solving time. But I am afraid important things such as properties of the wavefunction are still left as excercises. I was generally bored and sometimes confused in my time with book. Due to lack of interesting physical (ideal or real) examples, I felt like I was collecting ideas rather than exploring them. Also since every (easy) step is shown, the chapters desperately need a good summary. I usually read the summary before the chapter itself to get motivation. I think things mentioned above should be improved on. Schuam's outline book won't help you much with problems in this book, that book solves problems of a more general nature.
Towards perfection:
A good alternative is: "Quantum mechanics: a modern introduction' by Das and Melissinos (1986, Gordon and Breach). It is full of great physical examples. I call it an 'alternative' because its
introduction of wave mechanics is not as complete as Griffith-like books. The wave approach, taken by Griffiths, suits some problems better than others in applications (like the eight other approaches to QM ,including the vector) but it also gives a 'can't see the forest for the trees' felling, the vector approach goes to the heart of QM. Fear not though, Das and Melissinos do provide a good introduction to wave mechanics. The best replacement for Griffiths is, A.C. Phillips 'Intro to QM' (Wiley, 2003). This is a nice, clear, as physical as you can get with waves approach to QM. Another great (good as Das & Melissinos, but slightly less 'physical') book is H.C. Ohanian 'Principles of quantum mechanics' (1990, Prentice Hall) which is nice and clear unified (uses both waves and vectors) presentation of quantum mehcanics.
Ohanian's text makes an excellent companion to Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics, which is the the best book
ever written on Non-Relativistic QM.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction
This book is easily readable and that is probably the most important fact. If you are absolutely committed to an indepth study of quantum mechanics, perhaps Shankar might be a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Andrew Duncan
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the best intro to QM in my opinion
This is my favorite intro to quantum mechanics, very readable, insightful and clear. He tells you everything you need to know, all the basics, without being exhaustive or... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Lang Withers, Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars
love it
my great quantum mechanics book.
although there are some places where the explanations seems not enough or don't make much sense, it is a still great book. Read more
although there are some places where the explanations seems not enough or don't make much sense, it is a still great book. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kim, YuJung
4.0 out of 5 stars
Author is phenomenal
The paper looks like someone used Elmer's glue to attach the first and last pages to the cover. It has that lumpy/bubbly look from crappy glue drying. Read more
Published 3 months ago by SliperyNinjaOnATiger
5.0 out of 5 stars
SELLER WARNING. Otherwise good book.
To save some hassle and annoyance, DO NOT BUY THIS FROM JONES GROUP. From the start I should have suspected trouble when the package arrived open and the plastic packaging around... Read more
Published 3 months ago by caketown
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best physics book I have read
Griffiths is a genius. Extremely readable and enjoyable text. Subtly hilarious, but always very informative. I have never enjoyed or learned more from a physics book.
Published 3 months ago by Clay
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good stuff
I like this book, it's classic and help me a lot in study. I took this class a year ago and now I can still use it to find many concepts I need.
Published 3 months ago by Yanping Cai
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best introduction to quantum I have encountered
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... Read more
Published 4 months ago by joshua townsend
4.0 out of 5 stars
Decent Textbook
This textbook is a joy to read, even if you don't completely understand what the author is talking about. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Nadia
5.0 out of 5 stars
Makes quantum readable!
I love Griffiths! He somehow makes a textbook about quantum mechanics readable. He doesn't bother with inflated language and instead concentrates on explaining the concepts in a... Read more
Published 5 months ago by rocker3567
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