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Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
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.
468 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
October 4, 2015
In my university it was the prescribed textbook. And, to be honest, it failed to make any impact. Although it was good in some aspects, it was insanely bad in many.
Good:
1. It does not require the mastery of advanced mathematics which makes this book suitable for beginners.
2. Its tone is informal and makes it readable.
Insanely bad:
1. Puts out the bra-ket algebra in the beginning but never uses beyond it.
2. He has given most of the necessary derivations as exercises, which makes it unsuitable for beginners.
3. Seems very erratic, irrational, and sometimes illogical in its approach. I never found it to be trustworthy.
Though I've read it from cover to cover, I consider it as 'abandoned'! This book seems to be pretty good to many people but I found it otherwise. It never added anything but very little to my understanding. I would rather recommend QUANTUM MECHANICS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS and Priciples of Quantum Mechanics, if someone wants to learn QM from scratch.
Good:
1. It does not require the mastery of advanced mathematics which makes this book suitable for beginners.
2. Its tone is informal and makes it readable.
Insanely bad:
1. Puts out the bra-ket algebra in the beginning but never uses beyond it.
2. He has given most of the necessary derivations as exercises, which makes it unsuitable for beginners.
3. Seems very erratic, irrational, and sometimes illogical in its approach. I never found it to be trustworthy.
Though I've read it from cover to cover, I consider it as 'abandoned'! This book seems to be pretty good to many people but I found it otherwise. It never added anything but very little to my understanding. I would rather recommend QUANTUM MECHANICS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS and Priciples of Quantum Mechanics, if someone wants to learn QM from scratch.
August 22, 2022
Marry me, professor Griffiths
February 8, 2017
Update (05/15/16): tl;dr: I would give this book more stars if it is titled "Introduction to Wave Mechanics."
First, the good: this book doesn't require mastery of "advanced" classical physics and math such as Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, electromagnetism, partial differential equations, linear algebra, or statistics. For example, Griffiths takes his time to explain standard deviations, separation of variables, and phase and group velocity in the beginning. This makes the book very accessible.
The bad: While a step by step calculation makes it easy to follow, one often gets lost in details and misses the big picture. This is not helped by the fact that the book shies away from the math of QM: linear algebra and the concise Dirac notation, which is introduced but quickly discarded.
The author takes the shut-up-and-calculate approach to the extreme (like how standard freshman physics textbooks present QM). The formalism is not developed logically, and, overall, the book is very weak in formalism. For example, the Schrödinger equation specialized to the position space is given from the get-go with the motivation that it is the quantum equivalence of Newton's equation of motion, which is true, but not really helpful; a child may be familiar with the notion of forces, but not Hamiltonians and complex amplitudes. The many subtleties of postulates are never spelled out. (Compare this to e.g. chapter 4 of Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics (Hardcover))
An important fact that quantum states (and not wave functions) and operators in Hilbert space are geometric objects that do not depend on a particular representation is not emphasized enough; when discussing finite-dimensional systems, Griffiths never demonstrates a change of (orthonormal) basis. Symmetry and change-of-basis transformations only make a brief appearance as 2 and 3-star end-chapter problems (which, according to the author's rating scheme, are difficult or peripheral problems) and even there he still doesn't tell you that they are unitary matrices!
The use of the word spinors interchangeably with two-element column matrices does not help in the slightest. Two-element column matrices are two-element column matrices. Spinors are related to representations of rotation groups, to which Griffiths makes no connection.
He also makes degenerate perturbation theory looks complicate, whereas in fact it is just diagonalizing the degenerated submatrix.
In conclusion, it seems that everything involving matrices is so badly treated that this book should be called Introduction to Wave Mechanics.
I used this book for an undergraduate course taught by an excellent professor. (He made up all the problem sets. So I can't judge the quality of problems in Griffiths.) And I had learned Dirac notation by myself beforehand (from Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics). I can recommend it to an absolute beginner, but with the caveat that this cannot be your last QM book if you want to understand QM. Griffiths prepares you in wave mechanics for e.g. spectroscopy and scattering calculations, but for the foundations of QM, look elsewhere. (A very nice second book explicitly aiming to clear up the conceptual understanding of those who just finish this kind of "wave mechanics" course is Isham's Lectures on Quantum Theory: Mathematical and Structural Foundations.)
For alternatives, I recommend Schumacher and Westmoreland's Quantum Processes, Systems, and Information for modern concepts and Zettili's Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications for worked problems. Shankar and Sakurai mentioned in this review are also excellent.
First, the good: this book doesn't require mastery of "advanced" classical physics and math such as Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, electromagnetism, partial differential equations, linear algebra, or statistics. For example, Griffiths takes his time to explain standard deviations, separation of variables, and phase and group velocity in the beginning. This makes the book very accessible.
The bad: While a step by step calculation makes it easy to follow, one often gets lost in details and misses the big picture. This is not helped by the fact that the book shies away from the math of QM: linear algebra and the concise Dirac notation, which is introduced but quickly discarded.
The author takes the shut-up-and-calculate approach to the extreme (like how standard freshman physics textbooks present QM). The formalism is not developed logically, and, overall, the book is very weak in formalism. For example, the Schrödinger equation specialized to the position space is given from the get-go with the motivation that it is the quantum equivalence of Newton's equation of motion, which is true, but not really helpful; a child may be familiar with the notion of forces, but not Hamiltonians and complex amplitudes. The many subtleties of postulates are never spelled out. (Compare this to e.g. chapter 4 of Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics (Hardcover))
An important fact that quantum states (and not wave functions) and operators in Hilbert space are geometric objects that do not depend on a particular representation is not emphasized enough; when discussing finite-dimensional systems, Griffiths never demonstrates a change of (orthonormal) basis. Symmetry and change-of-basis transformations only make a brief appearance as 2 and 3-star end-chapter problems (which, according to the author's rating scheme, are difficult or peripheral problems) and even there he still doesn't tell you that they are unitary matrices!
The use of the word spinors interchangeably with two-element column matrices does not help in the slightest. Two-element column matrices are two-element column matrices. Spinors are related to representations of rotation groups, to which Griffiths makes no connection.
He also makes degenerate perturbation theory looks complicate, whereas in fact it is just diagonalizing the degenerated submatrix.
In conclusion, it seems that everything involving matrices is so badly treated that this book should be called Introduction to Wave Mechanics.
I used this book for an undergraduate course taught by an excellent professor. (He made up all the problem sets. So I can't judge the quality of problems in Griffiths.) And I had learned Dirac notation by myself beforehand (from Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics). I can recommend it to an absolute beginner, but with the caveat that this cannot be your last QM book if you want to understand QM. Griffiths prepares you in wave mechanics for e.g. spectroscopy and scattering calculations, but for the foundations of QM, look elsewhere. (A very nice second book explicitly aiming to clear up the conceptual understanding of those who just finish this kind of "wave mechanics" course is Isham's Lectures on Quantum Theory: Mathematical and Structural Foundations.)
For alternatives, I recommend Schumacher and Westmoreland's Quantum Processes, Systems, and Information for modern concepts and Zettili's Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications for worked problems. Shankar and Sakurai mentioned in this review are also excellent.
June 28, 2020
بهترین کتاب کوانتوم!
حداقل از بین آنهایی که تا به حال دیده م.
حداقل از بین آنهایی که تا به حال دیده م.
March 30, 2008
Yeah, that's right. Five stars for the physics text book. That's how big a dork I am.
November 19, 2023
Many complicated plots. Full of paradoxes. Cat involved. Sure this isn’t a Murakami book?
November 7, 2014
I used this textbook when I was taking quantum mechanics classes years ago, and it is the best textbook I have ever read. This book differs from most other quantum mechanics textbooks in that it ignores the historical development of quantum mechanics, and jumps straight into the mathematical formalism (the reader is faced with the time-dependent Schrodinger equation on the very first page!). In the first five chapters of the book, Griffiths explains the basic concepts of quantum mechanics. Chapter 2 was particularly interesting to me because it explains how to use the time-independent Schrodinger equation (in one dimension) for various potentials - e.g. "infinite square well" and "harmonic oscillator" (introducing ladder operators which are used in quantum field theory). The treatment of quantum tunnelling (using the Delta-function potential) is beautiful. Chapters 4 and 5 apply the Schrodinger equation to three dimensions and in spherical coordinates, and then introduces the hydrogen atom, angular momentum, spin, two-particle systems, and quantum statistical mechanics.
The second part of the book (chapters 6 to 12) deals with the applications of quantum mechanics. I particularly loved the sections on perturbation theory (time dependent and time independent), and the Variational Principle.
Although there is a lot of mathematics in this book (quantum mechanics is a mathematical subject), Griffiths does not give complete derivations for everything. For example: he simply presents the Laplacian in spherical coordinates and refers the reader to (Boas 1983) for a complete derivation. Similarly, Griffiths simply introduces, without explanation, the associated Legendre polynomial when deriving the solution to the angular equation in chapter 4.1. But I didn't find this to be a problem; quantum mechanics is complicated enough without the burden of having to derive every detail.
However, to get the most out of this book, it is essential that the reader works through as many problems as possible (a solutions manual is freely available on the internet). You might think that you have understood a particular concept but, without consolidation through practice in problem-solving, this understanding can slip away. Working through the problems requires a lot of work and time, and this is the only way to learn difficult concepts.
I still use this textbook as a reference in my professional life.
In summary: an excellent book that requires a lot of work.
The second part of the book (chapters 6 to 12) deals with the applications of quantum mechanics. I particularly loved the sections on perturbation theory (time dependent and time independent), and the Variational Principle.
Although there is a lot of mathematics in this book (quantum mechanics is a mathematical subject), Griffiths does not give complete derivations for everything. For example: he simply presents the Laplacian in spherical coordinates and refers the reader to (Boas 1983) for a complete derivation. Similarly, Griffiths simply introduces, without explanation, the associated Legendre polynomial when deriving the solution to the angular equation in chapter 4.1. But I didn't find this to be a problem; quantum mechanics is complicated enough without the burden of having to derive every detail.
However, to get the most out of this book, it is essential that the reader works through as many problems as possible (a solutions manual is freely available on the internet). You might think that you have understood a particular concept but, without consolidation through practice in problem-solving, this understanding can slip away. Working through the problems requires a lot of work and time, and this is the only way to learn difficult concepts.
I still use this textbook as a reference in my professional life.
In summary: an excellent book that requires a lot of work.
May 30, 2015
This book was our set book for Quantum mechanics. Although the descriptions were good and the calculations were admittedly useful the main point against it was that a lot of the topic was relegated to the questions. But you were left entirely on your own at this point as there were no solutions to the questions (these were supplied in a separate book for academic staff only). With the result that if you couldn't answer the question you were left with a gaping hole in your knowledge and probably couldn't progress any further unless you had a fully supporting lecturer who had a lot of time for their students.
In the end I had to forget this book and look elsewhere. I tried many books with little luck until it was virtually too late, when I found the book by Zettili (ISBN 0471489441) - a brilliant book that should have been the set text.
In the end I had to forget this book and look elsewhere. I tried many books with little luck until it was virtually too late, when I found the book by Zettili (ISBN 0471489441) - a brilliant book that should have been the set text.
July 29, 2020
Made quantum mechanics easy, which also made it easy for my quantum mechanics professor to make quantum mechanics hard.
March 28, 2022
Best QM book. 10/10.
February 20, 2021
This book is incomplete….but that is the point. The title promises exactly what the book is in every way. If you have a good understanding of Quantum Mechanics, then this book is not for you. If you have an understanding of ordinary differential equations, a willingness to learn some partial differential equations (similar to Griffiths E&M), working knowledge of E&M, and an interest in quantum mechanics beyond a pop-sci book then this book might be perfect for you.
Griffiths is able to take those prereqs and guide you along enough where you will be able to not only see the incompleteness of classical mechanics and E&M but of his own book in only four chapters (which is all I suggest from this book, is the first four). Now that is what I call a good teacher. He is able to derive ¾ of what describes a particle, {n,l,m}, in this style. In this derivation, we find out ourselves that it is incomplete and does not fully describe the particle and there is additional angular momentum that cannot be described through Diff. Eqs. With what acts like the rotation of the earth but not really because it can only take certain values, called Spin. It turns out that this, Spin, is the most intrinsic quantity in quantum itself. Which leaves the subject perfectly teed up for Sakurai to more fully explain.
Modern QM is written in terms of bra-ket formulation to more fully describe the subject. However, in my opinion, the average student is not ready for it and needs to be weaned of the classical world rather than pushed into the ocean and told to swim. Also, books that start with spin and use bra-kets often reference solutions to derivations in this book when describing wave mechanics without deriving it themselves. This is really an argument of education and not QM because the bra-ket method wins for actual physics. I am just not sure it is the best place to start when you first learn the subject. However, I would argue that this book is perfect for a post-E&M year with the same author.
Griffiths is able to take those prereqs and guide you along enough where you will be able to not only see the incompleteness of classical mechanics and E&M but of his own book in only four chapters (which is all I suggest from this book, is the first four). Now that is what I call a good teacher. He is able to derive ¾ of what describes a particle, {n,l,m}, in this style. In this derivation, we find out ourselves that it is incomplete and does not fully describe the particle and there is additional angular momentum that cannot be described through Diff. Eqs. With what acts like the rotation of the earth but not really because it can only take certain values, called Spin. It turns out that this, Spin, is the most intrinsic quantity in quantum itself. Which leaves the subject perfectly teed up for Sakurai to more fully explain.
Modern QM is written in terms of bra-ket formulation to more fully describe the subject. However, in my opinion, the average student is not ready for it and needs to be weaned of the classical world rather than pushed into the ocean and told to swim. Also, books that start with spin and use bra-kets often reference solutions to derivations in this book when describing wave mechanics without deriving it themselves. This is really an argument of education and not QM because the bra-ket method wins for actual physics. I am just not sure it is the best place to start when you first learn the subject. However, I would argue that this book is perfect for a post-E&M year with the same author.
February 11, 2024
Erişilebilir ve anlaşılabilir bir dili var, Griffiths'i bu denli okunabilir ve anlaşılabilir olduğu için kutlamak lazım. Ayrıca içinde çok fazla soru olması da bir artı bence. Ama kitap boyunca "Shut up and calculate" deniliyormuş gibi ama buna rağmen o kadar "rigorous" hesaplamalar da yapmıyor. Fizik kısmı "Afterwords" isimli son chapter'a sıkıştırılmış bence çok büyük bir eksiklik.
May 9, 2019
If you want to really learn quantum mechanics, never pick this book up.
August 15, 2020
After the last book I read - 'The Universe in you Hand' re-kindled my inner craving to get fascinated by the marvels of Quantum Dynamics, I couldn't not pick a "text book" kind of book loaded with equations, linear algebra, partial differentials, and of course integrals of all kind that would let me understand the mathematical basis of the fascinating concepts of Quantum Theory. I know a lot of purists don't necessarily think Griffiths's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics is the best of the text books out there, and I agree with them, in that this is probably not as comprehensive and formal, not as mathematically heavy as R.Sankar. BUT, after reading this completely, I was glad I chose this because for someone doing self-study, R.Sankar or JJ Sakurai tend to be very heavy, sometimes even intimidating. So, for someone like me, who was going from something like 'The Universe in your Hand' that was very generic/basic, to get to the basics of the derivation of time independent Schrodinger's equation, I needed an intermediary. And this book was the perfect fit there.
The first two pages of the book that mention all the relevant equations and constants was the first impressive thing in the book for me, as I don't know how many times I have hovered over that page by now! Other than that however, the book tends to become informal in a lot of places, maybe that's intentional, and sometimes reads like a novel (and I'm not a huge fan of that). It doesn't have any chapters dedicated to getting you up to speed with linear algebra, vectors, tensors etc, so I believe that's a prerequisite. The flow and organization of the book is impressive, easy to follow, and is coherent. Unfortunately, it doesn't use Bra-Ket notation everywhere so it gets frustrating sometimes. Chapter 12, simply titled Afterword, turned out to be my favorite chapter, despite having minimal number of equations, as it spoke about the most captivating topics of Quantum theory like EPR paradox, Bell's inequality etc.
I didn't do any of the exercise problems, which unfortunately, made me miss out on a lot of interesting problems. Other than that, I'd say I now have a decent idea of the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics (although not to the extent of using that on a Quantum processor to write Shore's algorithm). I think I'm ready to pick-up something advanced, either R.Shankar or Pauling.
However much I try to distract myself away from them, problems like the collapse of the waveform, Bell's inequality and its sheer simplicity, light's wave-particle duality, entanglement and that spooky action at a distance, hidden local variables, quantum eraser etc never cease to amaze me. And I guess the next book on this should let me brew my own concoction of ideas on these.
The first two pages of the book that mention all the relevant equations and constants was the first impressive thing in the book for me, as I don't know how many times I have hovered over that page by now! Other than that however, the book tends to become informal in a lot of places, maybe that's intentional, and sometimes reads like a novel (and I'm not a huge fan of that). It doesn't have any chapters dedicated to getting you up to speed with linear algebra, vectors, tensors etc, so I believe that's a prerequisite. The flow and organization of the book is impressive, easy to follow, and is coherent. Unfortunately, it doesn't use Bra-Ket notation everywhere so it gets frustrating sometimes. Chapter 12, simply titled Afterword, turned out to be my favorite chapter, despite having minimal number of equations, as it spoke about the most captivating topics of Quantum theory like EPR paradox, Bell's inequality etc.
I didn't do any of the exercise problems, which unfortunately, made me miss out on a lot of interesting problems. Other than that, I'd say I now have a decent idea of the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics (although not to the extent of using that on a Quantum processor to write Shore's algorithm). I think I'm ready to pick-up something advanced, either R.Shankar or Pauling.
However much I try to distract myself away from them, problems like the collapse of the waveform, Bell's inequality and its sheer simplicity, light's wave-particle duality, entanglement and that spooky action at a distance, hidden local variables, quantum eraser etc never cease to amaze me. And I guess the next book on this should let me brew my own concoction of ideas on these.
May 15, 2019
Very accessible for undergraduates, the line by line working is a bit clunky at times but great at others. I thought the introduction of the bra-ket notation was justified by the clarity it provides.
August 11, 2023
mid, just read sakurai and move along
June 25, 2024
i did pass my exam so i guess it was worth it
mr griffiths im a big fan
mr griffiths im a big fan
May 15, 2025
Griffiths I know you can do better, I’ve seen you do better this was not it. Some sections were good but the rest was so disorganized and out of order and simply didn’t make sense
Read
February 14, 2025Il mio 27 di MQ1 è anche merito tuo David, grazie
April 26, 2020
Great book! The theory is explained really well and is integrated with the math in a great manner. I recommend getting a solution manual for the problems though
June 15, 2007
This book has a very high average rating. Perhaps my disagreement comes from my non-traditional background in Quantum Mechanics, where I was first exposed to the formal aspects of the theory in the Spanish school system. At any rate, I found the theoretical elaborations highly schematic, and lacking even a nod towards rigor. Sure Griffiths has an approachable, even amusing voice, but that doesn't excuse for me the failure to really link the formal theory and its physical meaning. This book could have, and should have, been twice as long.
May 24, 2016
I was leisurely browsing through Griffiths the other day, only to realize that I've never reviewed it. Ah well. That's not entirely my fault, as my first quantum mechanical textbook was Sakurai, who was joined by others afterwards. Interestingly, Griffiths never got among my go-to books. That has nothing to do with the quality of the book. Introduction to quantum mechanics is a fine textbook for budding physicists, but then again, if someone has the spark in him/herself, then it doesn't matter which book serves as an introduction to quantum physics.
February 14, 2020
A difficult topic, made more difficult with poor detail, convoluted writing, and vague explanations. The questions are really what made me grasp the concepts, not Griffiths' explanation of things.
2/5
2/5
Read
May 10, 2011Using this for a class. Reads like a novel.
November 29, 2024
Damn, was disappointed by this one.
I think Griffiths is trying to do a "DIY" approach to QM (lots of proofs left to the reader), but this just is not compatible with his approach to QM. For example, he just gives you the TDSE and uses that to derive the Hamiltonian operator, which is then used to derive the TDSE. This kind of blatantly circular reasoning could have been avoided if he just started with fundamental axioms (e.g. canonical commutator). Also, some of the ordering is just nonsensical. Why are free particle, delta and finite well AFTER harmonic oscillator?
There is are also key concepts which are not explored enough. The chapter on Quantum Formalism is frankly pathetic. It quickly introduces Hilbert Spaces as a "notational trick", rather than a fundamental insight into representation-free formalism. Then he just forgets all that and NEVER uses BraKet notation again. This is such an important concept and he only spends a single chapter on it. Also, there is very little discussion on orthonormal basis (Hermite polynomial is like 1 page). 3D potential well is never mentioned and 3D oscillator is just one single DIY exercise.
Its not all bad though. Griffiths is a still a fantastic author and the informal style is very engaging. I also like the maths focused "shut-up and calculate" philosophy. Plus, there are many fantastic exercises, you just have to look for them (some are just repetitive or otherwise unnecessary). What's funny is that the Appendix gives a better introduction to abstract vector spaces than many maths textbooks.
Considering the amount of praise this book gets and the name behind it, I expected better.
I think Griffiths is trying to do a "DIY" approach to QM (lots of proofs left to the reader), but this just is not compatible with his approach to QM. For example, he just gives you the TDSE and uses that to derive the Hamiltonian operator, which is then used to derive the TDSE. This kind of blatantly circular reasoning could have been avoided if he just started with fundamental axioms (e.g. canonical commutator). Also, some of the ordering is just nonsensical. Why are free particle, delta and finite well AFTER harmonic oscillator?
There is are also key concepts which are not explored enough. The chapter on Quantum Formalism is frankly pathetic. It quickly introduces Hilbert Spaces as a "notational trick", rather than a fundamental insight into representation-free formalism. Then he just forgets all that and NEVER uses BraKet notation again. This is such an important concept and he only spends a single chapter on it. Also, there is very little discussion on orthonormal basis (Hermite polynomial is like 1 page). 3D potential well is never mentioned and 3D oscillator is just one single DIY exercise.
Its not all bad though. Griffiths is a still a fantastic author and the informal style is very engaging. I also like the maths focused "shut-up and calculate" philosophy. Plus, there are many fantastic exercises, you just have to look for them (some are just repetitive or otherwise unnecessary). What's funny is that the Appendix gives a better introduction to abstract vector spaces than many maths textbooks.
Considering the amount of praise this book gets and the name behind it, I expected better.
June 20, 2024
I have very mixed feelings about this book.
The book does not assume a lot of advanced mathematics, so anyone with a standard calculus II education can pick it up and start it (although, in the later sections on the hydrogen atom in 3d, vector calculus is a must). There are plenty of practice problems and example problems to demonstrate key concepts in the book, and the author does a satisfactory job of covering the essential material. There is even some decent derivations for very important concepts, such as particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, and the aforementioned hydrogen atom.
However, the books contains some serious flaws. The biggest of these is that it almost exclusively uses the Schrödinger wave mechanic formulation of quantum mechanics. The book introduces the bra-ket notation of the Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics in chapter 3, but then proceeds to not use it again. This is a massive disappointment, and is a huge draw back for the book. Other problems include some major leaps in logic and some bizarre statements, which I'm not even sure are correct. The author seems to also have his own unique notation in some places, which I have never seen in another quantum textbook, which can be very confusing for a person who is just learning.
In summary, while this is an alright book to start on with quantum mechanics, I personally do not feel it's appropriate for a first course in quantum mechanics or for the interested readers first foray into learning quantum mechanics. I would recommend Townsend's or Sakurai's quantum books over this one.
The book does not assume a lot of advanced mathematics, so anyone with a standard calculus II education can pick it up and start it (although, in the later sections on the hydrogen atom in 3d, vector calculus is a must). There are plenty of practice problems and example problems to demonstrate key concepts in the book, and the author does a satisfactory job of covering the essential material. There is even some decent derivations for very important concepts, such as particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, and the aforementioned hydrogen atom.
However, the books contains some serious flaws. The biggest of these is that it almost exclusively uses the Schrödinger wave mechanic formulation of quantum mechanics. The book introduces the bra-ket notation of the Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics in chapter 3, but then proceeds to not use it again. This is a massive disappointment, and is a huge draw back for the book. Other problems include some major leaps in logic and some bizarre statements, which I'm not even sure are correct. The author seems to also have his own unique notation in some places, which I have never seen in another quantum textbook, which can be very confusing for a person who is just learning.
In summary, while this is an alright book to start on with quantum mechanics, I personally do not feel it's appropriate for a first course in quantum mechanics or for the interested readers first foray into learning quantum mechanics. I would recommend Townsend's or Sakurai's quantum books over this one.
May 4, 2019
Praise to the heavenly vault! There's no better quantum text than this. David Griffiths' book will mark his place in this world as a Master of Explaining Impossible Topics. With humor, intrigue, and adventure through the dark and creepy paths of quantum queerness, Griffiths has a rare talent (but for Atkins, I've never seen it before) for being able to match the incomprehensible microworld with neural weirdness of the macro that makes the topic comprehensible. He wonderfully prepares the student, most of whom greet quantum like a taser or a train. On page 1 he puts the student at ease with quotes from the masters. "If you are not confused by quantum physics then you haven't really understood it," said Niels Bohr. "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics," said Richard Feynman. "This book is to teach you how to do quantum mechanics," writes Griffiths. So relax, kid. Nobody gets it. You won't either. Just learn how to turn the crank and steer the wheel. This old jalopy will take you where you want to go without knowing what's under the hood. Nobody knows what's under the hood. Once you get to where you're going, Griffiths tells you what quantum means in the last chapter. Yikes! If you read this chapter in public, hold your shorts up, it might scare the pants off you.
February 5, 2023
My final class in mathematics was a one-semester class in Solid Geometry, taken when I was a senior in high school. I successfully wriggled through college without taking even one class in the subject area. (I'm an English Lit major.)
But ever since a viewed a PBS special about "Einstein's Quantum Problem", I have been consumed with curiosity to learn more about Quantum Mechanics (QM).
[BTW: I highly recommend watching the above-mentioned PBS special which is still available on YouTube.]
I did not grasp any of the myriad of formulae expressed in this textbook but I do now understand that if one knew the basics of advanced math AND understood the vocabulary signified by each symbol presented, one might be able to learn a lot about guts of QM.
I have learned enough to place myself in the Niels Bohr camp of QM interpretation rather than in the Einstein camp. I can also see that upcoming discoveries at CERN and from the JWST will further add to the stew of ideas surrounding QM. (How's that for a brace of undefined acronyms?)
But ever since a viewed a PBS special about "Einstein's Quantum Problem", I have been consumed with curiosity to learn more about Quantum Mechanics (QM).
[BTW: I highly recommend watching the above-mentioned PBS special which is still available on YouTube.]
I did not grasp any of the myriad of formulae expressed in this textbook but I do now understand that if one knew the basics of advanced math AND understood the vocabulary signified by each symbol presented, one might be able to learn a lot about guts of QM.
I have learned enough to place myself in the Niels Bohr camp of QM interpretation rather than in the Einstein camp. I can also see that upcoming discoveries at CERN and from the JWST will further add to the stew of ideas surrounding QM. (How's that for a brace of undefined acronyms?)
August 12, 2023
Everything I know about QM, I know from this book. This is a perfect way to learn QM -- you need some foundation in physics and calculus to "get it" but Griffiths does an amazing job at explaining what QM is, where it came from, and why it's fundamentally different from the Newtonian physics we all learn in high school.
A lot of the criticism for this book comes from the fact that it is indeed a very incomplete treatment of the subject. That is the point of this book. I will admit that the Formalism chapter (Chapter 3) is difficult and seems out of place the first time you see it. Thinking in Hilbert space and digesting the concepts covered here is challenging if all you've seen is classical physics and its mathematical foundations: statistics, basic calculus, algebra, and geometry. Griffiths E&M book flows a little better in this regard, building up the mathematical basics early on and then applying it throughout the book. The formalism is important, no doubt, but was definitely my least favorite part of the book.
A lot of the criticism for this book comes from the fact that it is indeed a very incomplete treatment of the subject. That is the point of this book. I will admit that the Formalism chapter (Chapter 3) is difficult and seems out of place the first time you see it. Thinking in Hilbert space and digesting the concepts covered here is challenging if all you've seen is classical physics and its mathematical foundations: statistics, basic calculus, algebra, and geometry. Griffiths E&M book flows a little better in this regard, building up the mathematical basics early on and then applying it throughout the book. The formalism is important, no doubt, but was definitely my least favorite part of the book.
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