Rating: 
Summary: Future physics grad students beware! A weak introduction.
Review: In "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics," Griffiths lays out a shockingly insubstantial presentation of the subject. Many reviewers have noted the painful brevity of the text, but so what? Many excellent physics books are terse (as anyone knows if they are familiar with Landau & Lifschitz or Dirac), and for Dr. Griffiths, short paragraphs are, by far, the least of his errors. (I won't describe them much, since other, vigilant reviewers have already pointed them out. The review will be my personal angst alone...)Griffith's style is breezy and glib, to such an extent that he appears to vainly grasping at the microscopic attention spans of his weakest readers. After all, we live in an era where teachers must entice their TV-addicted, suburbanite students to work, using books with beautiful covers and lots of flashy pictures inside. Many teachers no longer dare to challenge their students with difficult readings or problem sets because they will be harrassed by endless complaints and negative evaluations (bad news for profs seeking tenure). I think it is just that environment that spawned this text, because "Intro to QM" is an easy book. The mathematical level is just too low for advanced undergraduates. (Note: There are good textbooks on QM that have more modest levels of mathematical sophistication. But those books are not being advertised as something they are not.) For example, although Griffiths introduces "bra-ket" notation, he never uses it! Is it too hard? Well, if you don't know any linear algebra it might be a bit of a struggle. But, of course, if you don't know linear algebra, you're not ready for junior-level QM! Griffiths does a grievous disservice to future grad students by not introducing this system. It is used everywhere in the literature, and is of enormous utility in solving difficult problems. Trying to teach QM without bra-ket notation makes as much sense as teaching electrodynamics without vector analysis. Now, an easy book is not necessarily a bad thing (unless it convinces students that they understand a subject when they really do not, which of course is not happening here...), unless it is badly written as well. The book is not uniformly poor, but many passages are just baffling. The examples of such bad pedagogy have been well-documented by other reviewers. Finally, a bit of advice to students for whom this text is required reading, specifically for physics majors considering graduate studies. Replace Griffiths with another book. Your library should have copies of introductory QM texts like Shankar, Cohen-Tannoudji, and many others. Look them over, and see which one fits your taste. Read these books to gain understanding, then do Griffiths' problems. It sounds like a lot of work (and it is!), but struggling with Shankar, et al., will yield up far richer benefits, ultimately making your introduction to QM an easier experience. If you struggle with Griffiths, you'll only be left confused.
Also, if you need a less mathematical introduction, try French & Taylor, along with the 3rd volume of the Feynman lectures, work on your math (linear algebra of ordinary differential equations are essential), and then move onto a more mathematical text like Shankar (obviously my favorite). At this point, you won't need Griffiths' "easy introduction," so don't waste your time. Ah well, I could rant all day, but another reviewer (Mr. Leckey) summed it all up far better than I. To paraphrase...... If you don't know any linear algebra
Or if you don't know anything about differential equations
And are glad of it because you just don't like math
Then Griffiths is your man. Yeah, that's about right.
Rating: 
Summary: "Introductory"
Review: If you are like many beginning chemistry/physics students and you feel intimidated by QM you will love this book. It covers the foundations of QM well and develops confidence by repetition of fairly simple -- But Critical -- mathematical constructs. If you are an obviously advanced student then you will want a book with more meat. Books with more "meat" generally do not have the word "Introductory" in the title. Strange how all of the anonymous geniuses missed that.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't make the cut.
Review: Perhaps people not expecting too much from an introductory text would be satisfied by the treatment of quantum mechanics in this book, but for those who want a no-holds-barred, give-it-all-to-me text that will inspire some thought should look elsewhere. The jokes and the glossing-over of some of the concepts in the book do not help the understanding of a complicated and non-intuitive subject. Another annoying habit of Griffiths is to provide examples as problems: "I'd love to work out an example for you ... Unfortunately, manageable cases are hard to come by, and I want to save the best example for you to work out yourself. Be sure, therefore, to study problem 2.22 with particular care." (pg. 46-47). I have used two other of his texts, including this one, and he is fairly consistent with his glib treatment of certain subjects. As a text that will give the reader an extremely superficial knowledge of the workings of QM, knowledge of what calculations to perform when asked to find expectation values or angular momentum projections, this text may be adequate. That is NOT to say that those people who like this book are not intelligent; it gets people through. However, if you happen to be a person who likes to know what they're doing when they're performing a calculation, why they are doing it, what the physics underlying the calculations happen to be, and where the technique comes from, then I would suggest that if this text is required for the course you are taking, supplement it with Cohen-Tannoudji, Dirac, J.J. Sakurai, Bransden and Joachain, Messiah, and/or Merzbacher. Please try not to use it as the primary text for an introductory course on QM. You will miss out on the wonderful subleties and quirks of an essential part of any physicist's curriculum and find it harder to catch up on it later if you decide to pursue the subject further.
Rating:
Summary: A great introductory text for Quantum Mechanics
Review: This is a great introduction to Quantum Mechanics with the right doses of math, physics and good prose. It is what the title says it is: an introductory text for the people that is curious about QM. Griffths does not avoid the controversial issues on the physical interpretation of the theory ( a part of the book that should have appeal even to the non-technical reader ). His treatment of the topics is always illuminating and gives the reader a sensation of understanding what he/she is being told.
Maybe Professor Griffths would consider next an up-to-date and extended edition of his Elementary Particle book and/or a new text on Quantum Field Theory.
Rating: 
Summary: dull as dishwater
Review: What an uninspired, leaden, workmanlike book. Quantum by the numbers, turn the math handle and crank out the answers. Although this is supposed to be an elementary book, there is more mind-numbing math here that many contemporary Physics majors can handle, and there is much less discussion of concepts than they need. If putting a dead pet on the back cover is friendly, this book is friendly! Goswami's book (now sadly out of print) is much better on motivation, and desn't do as much grind-math. I wish there were a book on Quantum that would break the mold and try to be interesting for today's students, and not just churn out the same old calculations on the same old systems (harmonic oscillator, hydrogen atom, blah-blah). It could have sections on quantum computing, laser trapping... This is not that book.
Rating: 
Summary: Clear, but too elementary
Review: One can reliably expect that a book writen by David Griffiths is clearly written. Unfortunately, he writes at too elementary a level, both in terms of physics and mathematics. Reasonable physical insight, but not enough actual practice seeing how difficult E/M problems are set up or solved. Two major complaints: too little mathematical machinery is introduced (at the very least, Green's functions and Bessel functions could have been used) and SR is not well-integrated into the text. One does not really get a feeling for the beautiful connection between electric and magentic fields as being two sides of the simplest physical gauge theory. Purcell is a better choice for more introductory courses, Jackson for more advanced ones. I've had good experiences using Jackson with advanced undergraduates. I use the same syllabus as the grad course, but taught at about half the pace.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good book to learn QM from
Review: Let me begin by saying that it would be a mistake to learn from Griffiths, for the simple reason he sticks to the coordinate representation without exploiting the bra-ket formalism. This is akin to studying electromagnetism without using vector analysis (or more advanced methods), like early 20th century texts taught it. This alone makes the book a bad purchase. Another point against buying this book is that it's incomplete and elementary. If you're thinking of pursuing a career in physics you will outgrow it VERY quickly and it will become useless. Your money is better spent on more encyclopedic (albeit dry) texts such as Messiah or Cohen-Tannoudji, or on slightly more advanced texts, such as Shankar's excellent (introductory, too!) book. These will serve you in years to come, even through your PhD and afterwards. That being said, I did not find anything particularly bad or good about this book. Griffiths style is nice, but style doesn't sell physics books. There are dozens of books on QM and it seems a bit strange to me that people still keep on writing books on this subject. I did not personally try the problems - you don't buy books for problems, you buy books to learn about physics. If you want problems with solutions, try the excellent and comprehensive "Problems and solutions on quantum mechanics", edited by Lim Yung-kuo -it doesn't cost as much as Griffiths and will be MUCH much more effective for learning problem solving skills! (also there's a 90% chance you'll find your homework problems in there ... ;-))
Rating:
Summary: Good Book, but not comprehensive
Review: I used this book for a self-study of QM. While it jumps right into the material, it fails to give an intuitive basis for much of what it is covering. I highly recommend Michael Morrison's "Understanding Quantum Physics: A User's Manual" as a supplement. Additionally, I don't think Griffiths is correct in postpoining the formal mathematical formulation of QM (i.e. Dirac bra/ket notation, etc.) He glosses over these topics, and he should treat them more in detail earlier in the text so that when a reader sees them in higher level books the transition will be easier.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Introduction
Review: I used this book in an introductory quantum class last semester, and found it to be a well-written, easy-to-read, and, perhaps most importantly, lively text. Griffiths deserves to be described by the old term for physicist: "natural philosopher." He makes sure to explain concepts using logical, physical arguments and reviews most of the relevant math needed to understand the physics. It's something of a letdown, then, that many of the problems are mere mathematical exercises in tedium. There are many good problems, however, and, on the whole, it's a great book, especially if you've seen quantum a little before, as I had.
Rating:
Summary: Great Primer to Quantum Mechanics
Review: Although this book is not very comprehensive, it is extremely good in preparing students for a more advanced course in quantum mechanics. It is easy reading, so it would be great for personal studying as well. The chapters are well organized, the writing is clear, and the problems are well written. It is still one of my favorite quantum books. I think that people learning quantum mechanics should first start with this book and then go on to more difficult ones.
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