Rating: 
Summary: almost perfect
Review: This book is the best text book I have ever used.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is a great book, one of the two best science books I read (the other is Willard's "General Topology"). Shankar delivers the correct combination of mathematical rigor and physical intuition. Also, the book covers a great deal of material.Some specific suggestions, especially for someone new to QM: 1) Pay special attention to Chapters 5 and 7. They are somewhat more difficult than the other chapters in the first part of the book, but are VERY important. 2) One of the book's many advantages is that it's self-contained. But if you're looking for a complement, or rather a different approach, I suggest to also look at the Feynman Lecture Notes, Vol. 3.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is a great book, one of the two best science books I read (the other is Willard's "General Topology"). Shankar delivers the correct combination of mathematical rigor and physical intuition. Also, the book covers a great deal of material. Some specific suggestions, especially for someone new to QM: 1) Pay special attention to Chapters 5 and 7. They are somewhat more difficult than the other chapters in the first part of the book, but are VERY important. 2) One of the book's many advantages is that it's self-contained. But if you're looking for a complement, or rather a different approach, I suggest to also look at the Feynman Lecture Notes, Vol. 3.
Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to QM
Review: This is a very clear book by an excellent author and teacher. I took a class with Shankar, and his teaching is as good as his writing. The physics I learned from Shankar has continued to be useful and relevant as a physics graduate student, and many of my collegues whom I turned onto this book agreed!
Rating:
Summary: excellent text
Review: This is an excellent text book. It's also very nice for self study. The explanations are good, you might have to reread a bit here and there, but if you think about them, they're very insightful. The problems lend themselves to explaining the material, good math habits and getting some good experiance. Solutions are provided to some in the back, but by reading you can see whether or not you answered the question correctly. So I really can't say enough.. great book.
Rating:
Summary: Want to understand QM? Get this book!
Review: This is the ONLY no-nonsense QM book that won't cloud your mind with obscure wave-matter pictures at the begining, like most QM texts do.
This book tells it like it is: starts from the basic principles and postulates that give the most accepted formulation of QM, and then, with that knowlage at hand, goes on to cover all the topics you'd learn in a QM undergraduate course. Shankar's explanations are clear and precise, you won't find a better account of QM in any other text book.
I read this book, didn't go to my course lectures and I got a 94 at the end. I give most of the credit to this excellent book. Another major advantage is this book uses the most advanced mathematical notation from the start. Once you get used to it, you can concentrate on the physics. Many text and professors just switch to this notation at some point, without properly explaining it, and you have to struggle with the new language at the same time whilst trying to understand, say, quantum theory of Angular Momentum or something. In short: This is the best QM text around.
It was worth every penny it cost me.
Rating:
Summary: Want to understand? Buy this book!
Review: This is the only QM textbook that really teaches you the subject the right way from the start. Most undergraduate texts start by drawing a hazy matter-wave picture that you don't understand. Some of them even "derive" the Schroedinger equation (which is of course impossible and wrong). This book gives it to you straight, what the accepted formulation of QM is, and how to physically interpret the results.
The book is very clear in explaining everything, you can realy understand what's going on.
Another advantage is that it uses the more advanced mathematical notation of bra-kets from the start. You get used to it quickly, and then you don't have to struggle with it at the same time when trying to understand the physics. This is a very important advantage over other texts, that suddenly start using this notation and leave you hanging without a proper explanation of what it means.
The book is very complete and you can learn everything (or almost) from it alone.
I had my first QM course, didn't go to the lectures at all, just did the homework and read this book. I got 94 at the end. This book is no-nonsense, readable, and clear.
If you looked at other QM texts, you will know most of them don't have even one of those three properties. It was worth every cent it cost me.
Rating:
Summary: Thw only QM book you'll ever need
Review: This is THE Quantum Mechanics Text. We used it for the 98-99 graduate course in QM at UC Santa Barbara. I had never really studied QM before, and without Shankar's book guiding me, I don't think I would have made it through the course. QM is not an easy subject, but if you have a genuine desire to learn, Shankar's book will make the experience as painless as possible, not to mention a hell of a lot of fun! A few notable points of the book: A nice physicist's intro to the elements of functional analysis as needed for Dirac's version of QM- which is what most of the book is based on. A good treatment of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics that allows one to appreciate the transition from classical mechanics to QM. Postulates first, explanations of them, and then applications later. Also a good intro to Path integrals and field quantization for those that plan to take Quantum Field Theory. Hopefully someday Shankar will write a book on Quantum Field Theory!
Rating:
Summary: A simple text on the complex subject
Review: Those of us who have chosen to study and work in the field of physics are well aware of the fact that this subject is not a very easy one. Even though it was the opinion of many great physicists that Mother Nature is simple on the basic level still there are some points that are hard to understand (such 'points' will probably always be there). It is particularly true of Quantum Mechanics. Created in the first quater of the 20th century it not only uses complex math but also requires a radical change in the way people think. So every book that makes things look less complicated is very much appreciated. It is my honest opinion that Principles of Quantum Mechanics by R. Shankar is one of these books. Being a second year graduate student I've read many books on the subject (and not only in English). Principles was certainly the easiest one to read (I am talking about comprehensive and serious texts; not the popular ones). The author is a master of showing the inner working of QM without obstructing the way with unnecessary details. Carefully chosen exercises serve the same purpose-they illustrate some underlying ideas in a very simple way. Even though I gave 5-star rating to this book there are some aspects of it that can be improved. The author completely omits any discussion on collapse of the wave function. He also introduces postulates (Ch.4) without giving them sufficient justification. All this omissions are understandable since the book has 600+ pages but I still think that the above mentioned topics are of great importance and should at least be mentioned in the book.
Rating:
Summary: It was a miracle when it first came out.
Review: When this book first reached print it was virtually the only QM student text out there in which the student was not expected to learn the Dirac representation by osmosis or by catching it like cooties. Regardless of its warts this is a fine text just for that reason alone. Another good treatment is Sakurai. I envy the people who used Shankar as a first introduction to QM. A wonderful book.
| 
