Rating: 
Summary: One of the better QM books out there
Review: Out of the books I have studied for QM, this is my favorite. Some of the details are missing and the perturbation theory and scattering sections do need additional details but overall I found his method of introducing the Dirac notation about the best for me personally. Others may differ. Make no mistake about it: this is not a book that you can just hand to a student and tell them to go on about it and be a responsible instructor. It does suffer from the same limitation as almost all other QM books: it just teaches QM but does not tell the student what theoretical physics is all about. They probably do this because the course is for such a wide range of people. But I still believe the communication of this information lends insight unavailable elsewhere and useful for all. That is what make Dirac's book on QM great even today (although I will not presume to maintain its relevance for the modern student).
Rating:
Summary: A first-class book on quantum mechanics
Review: Sakurai was one of the smartest physicists of his generation, and it shows in this book. A characteristic of the physics writings of such greats as Einstein, Pauli, Heisenberg, and Dirac is that they make advanced physics theories seem so clear and transparent that one is always inclined to think, "of course, that's the way to do it." Sakurai's book comes across the same way, but there are plenty of good problems to bring you back down to Earth. Especially useful are the discussions of Feynman path integrals, the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the WKB approximation, Schwinger's treatment of angular momentum, and the Dyson series in perturbation theory.
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Summary: An innovative approach to QM
Review: Sakurai's book is of insurmountable lucidity. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students of quantum mechanics alike. His introduction to Dirac algebra from the outset is a wonderful and original characteristic which acclimates the reader to abstract concepts and powerful mathematical tools from the start. Expositions of Feynman Path-Integrals, perturbation theory and symmetries in QM are all equally enjoyable. Problem sets are often challenging but never dull. A classic text!
Rating: 
Summary: Introductory-Advanced-Modern Quantum Mechanics
Review: Sakurai's quantum mechanics textbook is the one with which I started understanding quantum mechanics. It is, however, not for beginners in the field. But if you are familiar with basic quantum concepts (wave-particle dualism, uncertainty principle, and maybe even some easy tunneling phenomena with wave functions and boundary conditions), you will certainly enjoy Sakurai's book.The book starts with the presenation of spin-1/2 systems and the Stern-Gerlach experiment. Throughout the text, reference is made to this very compelling example of quantum systems. Oerators are related to symmetry transformations, and the text is really both straightforward and well structurized. But then, the argument given by my fellow reviewer Doug Irving is quite correct - and that's why I can give only 4 stars for the book. Especially somewhere in the perturbation series the quality of the explanations and the argumentative clarity suddenly deteriorates. Finally, the scattering theory consists mainly only of formula with no further insight from helpful comments. Nonetheless, in my opinion the first chapters are written very well and can thus be recommended to any graduate student in physics. This is also due to the fact, that the book focuses on the key issues of quantum mechanics and leaves out less important material. What is the use of a 2-volume 1000-page quantum mechanics book if the average student remembers at most 10% of it. These 10% are contained in "Modern Quantum Mechanics".
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Summary: Great quantum text for advanced undergrad; begining grad
Review: So the first 4 chapters of this book are a work of art. They perfect the technique of using spin as an introduction to quantum concepts that Feynman made so famous in his Caltech lectures (yes, that's right, Sakurai did it better). So for understanding the core ideas of quantum the text and exercises (I worked almost all of them) of chapters 1-4 are great. Unfortunately, Sakurai died part way thru this project and it's pretty evident that chapters 5-7 (perturbation, permutations, & scattering) are someone else's doing. They don't really provide any great insight and are poorly organized. At this point; you're probably better off going back to Messiah or Merzbacher. There's also no treatment of relativistic quantum mechanics. An unfortunate end to what starts as a truely great book.
Rating:
Summary: It depends on what you want to get!
Review: The book is good and very clear. If you want to learn QM to apply it to statistical mechanics, condensed matter or solid state physics, etc. this book will suffice. But if you intend to specialize in field theory or superstrings, for instance, I recommend you to study QM from Ballantine. Sakurai is pretty good but he presents QM as if it were a set of rules that cannot be changed. I think that's not very interesting for a future theoretical physicist. Besides, he omits certain mathematical details (such as the existence of a complete set of eigenvectors for self-adjoint operators even in the case of continuous spectra, in rigged Hilbert Space or under Von Newmann formalism). In one point Sakurai is really wrong: he says that the use of self-adjoint ops. is needed in order that its eigenvalues are real. That's incidental: self-adjointness is crucial not because the eigval are real but because its eigenvectors form a complete set.
One thing is certain: using Sakurai you'll learn how to solve problems and apply QM to numerous situations, but you'll miss the foundations of the theory.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent text for bottom-up view of QM.
Review: The majority of undergraduate QM texts, e.g. Liboff, Bransden & Joachain, Cohen-Tannoudji, rely strongly upon the wave-interpretation of QM, Schrodinger's equation, and the semi-historical exposition style which invariably invokes the ultraviolet catastrophe. I feel that as an introduction to QM, this is fine. However, this semi-classical approach has the disadvantage that the reader/student has one foot firmly planted in classical thinking, and makes connections to QM only through the emergence of contradictory observations in classical physics. Maybe if you were learning quantum mechanics in 1908 this approach would be fine. But in the 21st century, perhaps it would be better to start off with one foot planted firmly in the weird, axiomatic and algebraic land of QM first, and to make contact with classical observations later. This is the approach of Sakurai. A quote from Julian Schwinger appropriately summarizes this idea, that this is a "non-historical approach" that "goes to the heart of the quantum experience." The book does such a good job of explaining fundamentals that I have found it enjoyable to read. Gaps in derivations are suitably placed such that the reader may attack them for exercise. However, they are not detrimental to the progression of ideas. Exercises are suitably difficult, and introduce new ideas that are related to ones in the chapter.
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Summary: Very good, concise second course on QM.
Review: This book is not for a beginner in QM (that's also explained in the preface), but almost so. Just any first contact with QM should be sufficient to get you going with this one. I think the strongest point of this book is that in relatively few pages, you gain insight (physical, that is) in the workings of the theory, and most of the "standard items" are dealt with. In doing so, the text remains very readable, mainly thanks to the many very smart ways of introducing subjects which often shortcut longer traditional ways of doing so (as compared to Cohen-Tannoudji for instance). In short, this book gives you lots of profound physical insight for a reasonable effort.
Moreover, I have the impression that the book has been written with as an idea to teach just enough quantum mechanics in order to be able to jump to quantum field theory. For this aim, the book is indeed almost perfect.
However, although you do learn to do some calculations, the aim of the book is certainly not to teach you how to do involved practical calculations ; the treatment of perturbative techniques, although it covers its principles, is reduced to a minimum. The last chapter (on diffusion) has clearly not been written by Sakurai, because it misses the "smart physical insight instead of long calculations" approach which is so characteristic of the rest of the book.
A point which can annoy mathematically inclined readers is that some "proofs" are not mathematically correct (but in fact inspired by physical insight).
Finally, although this book does include some modern developments, I think an important modern issue, namely decoherence, is missing.
But overall, you get a huge amount of physical insight in relatively few pages.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book for a second course. Newbies hands off.
Review: This book is not for your virgin encounter with quantum mechanics. You will be devastated. I had seen other less prepared students struggle mightily with the book back in grad school days. However, quoting Schwinger, this book does go to "the heart of the quantum experience". To read this book at the right level, you need to already know QM well enough to free yourself from the confines of wave functions, and think in terms of the state of a quantum system, with wave functions being its spatial incarnation. The concept of states, not wave functions, IS the essence of quantum physics. For this level of readership, there are few books out there that does it better than Sakurai. For newbies, I suggest that you get a solid grounding in linear algebra and vector spaces before diving in.
Rating: 
Summary: Keep Away
Review: This book is often a standard text for introductory graduate-level quantum mechanics, which is the only reason why people may give it praise. This book is not illuminating, nor does it serve as a good reference tool. Sakurai seems to have written in the hidden secret style. Where he skips steps and explanation, not because they are simple or obvious, but because he believes the reader should work all that out for himself. As such, it is terrible as reference as it is somewhat disorganized (maybe not his fault) and seemingly intentionally unclear for someone trying to learn. This attitude is most reflected in the problems. They, except for a very few exceptions, are at a much greater level of difficulty than any explanation or example in the text. Some of these problems are insoluable with the tools presented in the chapters. And, most require reference to other works to gain strong exposition. When I was first using this book, I would often suffer from not realizing when the notation suddenly changed, and what assumptions Sakurai was making. I found myself gaining much better insight from other works that I referenced. I would suggest you only buy this book if you must for a class, and I ask instructors to do a little research and find a text that has a bit more focus on pedagogy. (Though I must confess, I do not know what would be focussed upon less. I feel the text is without focus, and entire pages of text are misleading pointless.)
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