Rating: 
Summary: More of a reference than a textbook
Review: I just finished a graduate level quantum mechanics course where Cohen-Tannoudji's "Quantum Mechanics" was the primary text. This work as both strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, it is as extremely comprehensive and detailed treatment of non-relativistic quantum mechanics as can be found, and makes an outstanding reference work. On the down-side, it took me half of the semester to learn how to find things quickly within the text, and I never felt as if it really helped me learn quantum in the intuitive sense. While the mathematical formalism was there, the language CT used to describe these phenomena seemed lacking. Fortunately, my copy of Sakurai helped me more with these less formal descriptions, and made a welcome complement to Cohen-Tannoudji. While CT may be the most comprehensive text I have seen, I would not recommend it being the only text used for a class.
Rating:
Summary: The thing about Cohen Tannoudji ...
Review: I read parts of Cohen Tannoudji as an undergraduate and found them helpful. However, I should warn potential buyers of several problems with this book, which is the reason why I'm writing this review: despite its huge size, Cohen Tannoudji omits many important topics which are crucial for graduates - I'm not just talking about, say, relativistic quantum mechanics and field quantization; I'm talking about the Wigner Eckhart theorem, spherical tensor operators, group theory, path integration, second order degenerate perturbation theory, fock spaces and a multitude of other topics, all quite important. That means that you're paying a lot of money for something which is only "half a book", since you will sooner or later have to go out and buy another reference for those topics. I agree that Cohen Tannoudji do give detailed explanations of the material they do cover, but there is a pay to pay, viz., this is not a comprehensive book.
I hope this will make you think twice before buying - not that I have anything against this book, on the contrary, I think it explains quite well the topics it does choose to cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential
Review: If you are fed up with QM books that bury you under tons of formulas from page one to the end, and who are written by authors who seem to hide their own ignorance of QM behind the equations, get this book and its first volume. Without any doubts, one of the best AND clearest books on QM, with mathematics used wisely.
Rating:
Summary: BEST QM BOOK FOR STARTERS
Review: It is a book which every student who needs to master QM sometime should thoroughly read and solve.It is a shame that it is not taught in the very first course of QM that any student comes across in his academic life,since this book clears the very fundamental so much that when you are done with it ,you can even solve any classical problem quantum mechanically yourself.The second chapter clearly lays down all fundamentalmathematical tricks and tools required to grasp the subject,and chapter 3 has the basic QM postulates so clearly and elaborately explained that one has no problem in understanding the application of quantum mechanical postulates to the problems in the later chapters. The basic plus points which other popular books lack are,elaborate treatment of angular momentum and Clebsch-Gordan coeffetients,partial traces,scattering,decay of a descrete state resonantly coupled to a continuum of final states and the probabilty calculations when particles are identical. it is a self consistent book,with exercises which clear the concepts (though not enough always).a major amount of worked out problems with clear explanations for all steps. it is a book which covers a great deal with no step jumps at all,no wonder it has two tiring fat volumes.
I repeat,a must for any science student willing to learn QM,before he touches any other book of the subject(the rest can only lead you astray). good luck.
Rating:
Summary: This text saved my neck!
Review: Many solved exercises. A very good math introduction. And as co-author, the recentely Nobel Laureate Mr. Cohen make this book a must.
Rating: 
Summary: Cohen is great, but Wiley & Sons could have done better.
Review: Most of what ought to have been said about this book has been said in previous reviews. It is missing a few crucial topics such as group theory, Lie algebras, and the Bell inequality, but it is extremely well-written, and the treatment of topics which are contained is nothing short of thorough. Reading this book is an illuminating experience. Wiley & Sons (the publisher) fall short in their treatment of the book. This may read like a modern classic, but it is put together like a telephone book. The paper binding is extremely flimsy (given the size of the book, that is to be expected), and the covers are of such low quality that not only do they scuff, crease, and dent easily, but they stick to surfaces when only a bit of dampness is present, and are impossible to remove without damage. For the price, one ought to expect more. A book like this deserves to be in a rounded, full-cloth, non-acid edition. At the very least, they could have put it in a textbook binding with sturdy cardboard covers. Timeless references ought to take more abuse than the Yellow Pages.
Rating:
Summary: Much better than Sakurai
Review: Sakurai was the required text for our graduate level class, but I also used Shankar, Griffiths (which I had from undergrad) and this book. The Dirac notation makes things very clean; I found the text clear and much easier to follow than Sakurai. It is self-consistent; all maths is explained somewhere in the text, something which Sakurai does not do. No steps are skipped and everything is laid out in gory detail; lovely, after many step-skipping, it's-all-obvious instructors this quarter. Both for the class and in studying for the qual, I hardly touched Sakurai, but found this book and Griffiths very helpful and complementary. However, I have classmates who swear by Sakurai and hate CT. To each her own.
Rating:
Summary: Best book of nonrelativistic QM ever written!
Review: Simply staten this is the top text in the nonrelativistic QM area.The book covers the whole subject with a very shrewd approach:each chapter covers the essentials of a specific sector of QM and then appendices deal with applications.So you can choose what you need most and skip the rest.The exposition is very clear and detailed (for example there is a simply wonderful chapter on addition of angular momenta)and never fails to build the necessary mathematical tools as needed.I rate this book 5 stars only because there is not a 6 stars option!
Rating:
Summary: The best out there
Review: The authors, well-known contributors to the field of quantum optics, have given in these 2 volumes probably the best overview of quantum mechanics at the first-year graduate level. Having used these books both as a graduate student and as a lecturer, I have found that there are not too many things in the book that I find in any way troubling. The only minus might be the number of exercises: there are really not enough that are representative of the concepts covered in the book. Also, there is no discussion of entanglement of states, this reflecting more than anything the date of publication. Entanglement has grown in importance in recent years due to the intense research in quantum computation. The inclusion of a discussion of entanglement would still be justified even though it was not an immensely popular topic at the time of writing. The first volume covers in detail the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics along with its physical motivation, the latter given in the first chapter. And, both in this volume and the second, the authors include a large set of "complements" to each chapter. All of them are very well-written and instructors can fine tune the course using them as needed or as time permits. The treatment of the tensor product of state spaces is especially well done, and the authors give a physical example of its use via the two-dimensional infinite well. Chapter 3 is a very long and absorbing overview of the physical foundations of quantum mechanics. The authors introduce the concept of an 'insufficiently selective measurement device', not found in other textbooks on quantum mechanics, and one that can be integrated easily into discussions of the foundations of quantum mechanics. In the complements to this chapter, the reader will find a sound presentation of gauge invariance in quantum mechanics and a brief overview of the path integral approach to quantization. Due to its importance in quantum field theory, the latter could perhaps be expanded into an entire chapter if a future edition of this book is written. The authors also include a discussion of the physics of a particle in a periodic potential, paving the way for a later course in condensed matter physics. A thorough presentation of the harmonic oscillator is included in Chapter 5 of this volume, and the authors include an elementary discussion of the quantization of the electromagnetic field in a complement to this chapter. And, again anticipating a later study of condensed matter physics, the reader is introduced to the physics of an infinite set of coupled harmonic oscillators, i.e. the physics of phonons. Atomic physics of course is not forgotten by the authors, as they spend an entire chapter on the central potential, and include several excellent complements on atomic orbitals and diatomic molecules. The physics and mathematics of angular momenta in quantum physics is discussed in chapter six, as preparation for the more detailed treatment of spin systems in volume 2. The authors begin volume 2 with a brief treatment of scattering theory, concentrating mostly on the scattering off a central potential. The authors continue the discussion of angular momenta begun in volume 1 and here show the reader how to deal with the addition of angular momenta. Clebsch-Gordon coefficients, spherical harmonics, and the Wigner-Eckhart theorem are treated in detail. No doubt the most important topic that the authors treat in these two volumes is on perturbation theory, for it is the calculation of cross sections and other physically relevant quantities and their comparison with experiment that give quantum mechanics its ultimate validity as a physical theory. Chapters 11 and 12 on stationary perturbation theory and the fine and hyperfine structure of the hydrogen atom serve as a good introduction to the methods of perturbation theory. The use of numerical methods and the computer is of course the favored method of calculation these days, and will remain throughout the 21st century. As more powerful machines are built and more sophisticated algorithms are developed, more problems in quantum physics of a nonperturbative nature will be tackled, allowing greater insight into and perhaps changes to quantum mechanics.
Rating:
Summary: One of the very best books on quantum mechanics.
Review: The two-volume set _Quantum Mechanics_
by Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu, and Laloe
is one of the very best places to learn
quantum mechanics.
But why are these paperbacks so expensive?
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