Quantum Physics

Rating:
Summary: Excellent textbook
Review: Gasiorowicz is a great introductory QM text. Quantum mechanics is ALWAYS difficult at first by its very nature, so those who complain that it is too difficult are probably just stupid or too lazy to actually read the book. The book does a good job on teaching bra-ket formalism and operator methods as well as solving for spin and angular momentum states. The book takes you through all the mathematical steps in a friendly way.
I duly recommend for a sophomore/junior level college QM course.
The only reason I with-hold the fifth star is because the book could have more interesting exercises and end of chapter problems ( answers to odd numbered problems would be good to)

Rating:
Summary: Great book for a second course in QM
Review: I agree with the first reviewer about this book being better suited to a reader who already has some experience with the subject. Someone coming to the subject for the first time might be better off with a different text (perhaps the third volume of The Feynman Lectures on Physics).

Nevertheless, I have to give Gasiorowicz's book five stars on account of its many strengths. The presentation is clear and concise, allowing the reader to keep the main concepts in better focus. Despite its relatively short length, this is a comprehensive (though obviously not exhaustive) volume, and some interesting higher-level topics are introduced along with the more fundamental material. It's true that a few more solved problems and examples could have been included, but I feel that the clarity of the presentation and the derivations more than make up for this.

Rating:
Summary: Worst for Introduction, Good for review
Review: I Have read both Liboff, Griffiths, mcGervey and a few others and I have still not found as bad a book for introducing quantum. Besides the number of typos, the author skips mathematical steps like crazy without giving the slightest reason. In addition he just sites principles which you will not know the slightest bit about from reading this book. Most students in my class appear to have turned to Liboff at this point in time and I do not know of a single admirer of Gasiorowicz in my class, AND the semester is almost over!!!
I suggest a combination Liboff for a rough idea of quantum and then Griffiths for an excellent and beautiful grasp of the concepts (introductory level of course.)

P.S. - You just have to get over Griffiths placing the Schrodinger equation on the first page and then you're off.

Rating:
Summary: Save it for later
Review: I've learned quantum physics twice now. First, with McQuarrie's "Physical Chemistry", with its 1000+ pages, and then with this book. I didn't learn anything the first time around that I wouldn't have learned in Gasiorowicz's book. It's short, which is *always* good, but manages not to leave anything important out. Don't look for examples, but if you're content with learning the full wave theory of quantum mechanics, this is the book for you. With the possible exception of Griffiths, this is the most fun quantum physics book out there.

For those of you interested in learning QM on a more sophisticated level without necessarily putting in more work, I recommend Griffiths "An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics," or for the really brave amongst you, Sakurai's "Quantum Mechanics" and "Advanced Quantum Mechanics" series.

Rating:
Summary: Smart, short, splendid
Review: I've learned quantum physics twice now. First, with McQuarrie's "Physical Chemistry", with its 1000+ pages, and then with this book. I didn't learn anything the first time around that I wouldn't have learned in Gasiorowicz's book. It's short, which is *always* good, but manages not to leave anything important out. Don't look for examples, but if you're content with learning the full wave theory of quantum mechanics, this is the book for you. With the possible exception of Griffiths, this is the most fun quantum physics book out there.

For those of you interested in learning QM on a more sophisticated level without necessarily putting in more work, I recommend Griffiths "An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics," or for the really brave amongst you, Sakurai's "Quantum Mechanics" and "Advanced Quantum Mechanics" series.

Rating:
Summary: A good solid INTRODUCTION
Review: People seem to expect a lot from an introductory book. However, this is seldomly seen in introductory textbooks. This book does give a solid introduction to quantum mechanics. Although it presents some of the topics poorly at times (especially the chapters after and including the one on abstract representation of states), it does cover them in a rather readible manner. A good thing about the book is that the author is not verbose. He quickly gets to the point, which can be seen from the short chapters of the book. It's not mathematically rigorous, however, it does expect the student to be comfortable with linear algebra. For mathematical rigor, I recommend Landau. Another recommended book is the one by Shankar.

Rating:
Summary: 1st place winner for the bland book award!
Review: This book is so bad I ended up hating the book and the course. I was really looking foward to the start of the semester. This book made me look forward to finals.
Inadequate explanations is what kills this text. I think Mr. Gasiorowicz forgot the text was ment for undergraduate students. Its guaranteed to leave anyone in a total state of consternation.

Rating:
Summary: bad textbook
Review: Well, I've already written a review about this book but I have to overwrite it now. I've taken a look inside Gasiorowicz last month again, and that's why I've to be more detailed now about this book. I still think that it is not a good book for those interested in Theoretical Physics: you won't understand the general structure of Quantum Mechanics using this book as a textbook, but it has some good examples and a good introduction to QM, in the sense that Gasiorowicz makes the jump from Classical Physics to QM less traumatic and one has the sensation to arrive to the Schroedinger equation and to one dimensional Quantum problems without leaving completely the classical tools. But the Schroedinger equation and 1D problems are just a very small part of QM. Gasiorowicz then introduces general Quantum ideas (like Simmetry concepts) using particular examples and totally lacks of a general approach, which would make it possible to really understand the subject. (For such a purpose I'd recommend J.J. Sakurai or L.D. Landau or W. Greiner). Well, turning to an end, I think that the first part of the book would be very useful for Engineers who want a brief introduction to the subject to understand some basics of QM they may use in Electronics, and even for Physics students who want a short intoduction before reading Sakurai. A nice way for a Physics - QM course could be: first 5 chapters of Gasiorowicz, then going on with Sakurai and Landau or Greiner.