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
128 of 134 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introductory text book if you want to learn,
By
This review is from: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition) (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.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good,
By
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This review is from: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition) (Hardcover)
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?
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic First Book,
This review is from: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition) (Hardcover)
The best introduction to quantum mechanics around, without doubt. Griffiths knows how to drive home the key concepts. Insufficient for a graduate student, but a highly desirable supplement to Shankar/Cohen-Tannoudji because Griffiths reminds you what is and what is not important concisely. There is no question that this book is brilliantly written. The smartest people are those who understand how to say things concisely and to the point, not pretentious people who hide behind equations and jargon because they cannot communicate ideas. Griffiths is obviously a very smart man.
This is written as a graduate physicist. People who say that this book is insufficiently rigorous tend to be (but not necessarily) intellectual snobs who want to impress themselves and others by saying "Oh, Griffiths is too low level for me, I'm so great..." This is an INTRODUCTION, and that's what it serves to do...science was created by men based on intuition and logical clues, not by the gods of math (and I'd argue most of what is key in math came from mathematical clues and intuition before the proofs and notation...before derivatives and integrals were well defined, people were using them to solve physical problems).
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