No discussion of the Uncertainty Principle. What is presented is clear, but it leaves out a lot: No statement of the postulates. Scherrer, Quantum Mechanics: An Accessible Introduction. Griffiths makes many editorial asides which some find condescending ('swarmy' is the word Prof Degrand uses) but I like them. Hardly ever uses the powerful and all-important Dirac notation. No clearly-labeled statements of the postulates of QM. Good, but he starts off assuming you understand the Schrödinger Equation and know where it comes from. Griffiths, Intro to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed. Our text, Griffiths, is the best of the bunch, but still not as great as his E&M text!) Maybe the problem is that QM is just too intrinsically messy, both mathematically and conceptually, to be explained in a clean, clear, and succinct manner.Īmong the texts I have looked at carefully are: In my opinion, there is no great QM textbook at this level, or at any level. Michael Dubson notes for Phys 3220 Spring 2008) Boas, ' Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences' (very useful for mathematical tricks and techniques you may have forgotten) Other books of possible use for this course:įeynman, Leighton, and Sands: ' The Feynman Lectures on Physics, part III.' (Part of a truly wonderful series of 3 'introductory' physics books.) Liboff- ' Introductory Quantum Mechanics'

The next are all very much at Griffiths' level (and have been used or considered as primary texts in the past) Tipler- ' Modern Physics' (slightly simpler level, more 2170-like)Įisberg and Resnick- ' Quantum Physics ' (again perhaps more 2170-like in level, although they cover lots of interesting and often advanced examples) More than any other branch of physics, QM is impossible to learn well from a single text! Here are just a few suggestions: If you're having difficulties their different styles, perspectives, additional problems and examples may be very useful to you. There are many introductory quantum texts out there. Textbooks for Junior-level quantum mechanics (such as PHYS3220/4410)

Griffiths intro to quantum mechanics