Rating: 
Summary: The best introductory QM text
Review: This is the best first course quantum mechanics text book by far. I used it as a text in first semester QM. How do I know it is the best? During first semester qm I spent many hours in the school library reading qm books. The library had a large section of qm books. I used to take 10 to 20 books home at a time. I was always looking for better explanations of particular expositions, and I found that often one book gave the clearest exposition in a particular area. Also, Ifound it helpful to read how several books described, for example, solution to the step function and others. But David Griffiths book is the best written book of all those others I read. The Griffiths book is easy to understand. That is what makes it a good book for the beginning student of qm. Let me give an example of what I am saying: Fourty five years ago, when I first studied calculus, there was only one text book. It was the then venerable Calculus and Analytic Geometry by George Thomas, Jr. This book was not easy to study. It is not a well written book compared to modern calculus text books. But now there are many good calculus text books. Now calculus is a fairly easy subject because the text books are well written. They are student friendly. I think that most qm books are like the Thomas book in that they are not student friendly, and the Griffiths book is the first student friendly qm book in my view. The one criticism that students might have of the Griffiths books is that the problems are long and time consuming. This is true if you do not use Mathematica or some other math program. If you use Mathematica, the problems can be worked in minutes. The Griffiths book uses wave mechanics notation throughout, which every physicist must learn. To learn the Dirac notation, the best book I found (and the most elegant qm book I found) is Quantum Mechanics, by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, and Franck Laloe.
Rating:
Summary: The best introductory QM text
Review: This is the best first course quantum mechanics text book by far. I used it as a text in first semester QM. How do I know it is the best? During first semester qm I spent many hours in the school library reading qm books. The library had a large section of qm books. I used to take 10 to 20 books home at a time. I was always looking for better explanations of particular expositions, and I found that often one book gave the clearest exposition in a particular area. Also, Ifound it helpful to read how several books described, for example, solution to the step function and others. But David Griffiths book is the best written book of all those others I read. The Griffiths book is easy to understand. That is what makes it a good book for the beginning student of qm. Let me give an example of what I am saying: Fourty five years ago, when I first studied calculus, there was only one text book. It was the then venerable Calculus and Analytic Geometry by George Thomas, Jr. This book was not easy to study. It is not a well written book compared to modern calculus text books. But now there are many good calculus text books. Now calculus is a fairly easy subject because the text books are well written. They are student friendly. I think that most qm books are like the Thomas book in that they are not student friendly, and the Griffiths book is the first student friendly qm book in my view. The one criticism that students might have of the Griffiths books is that the problems are long and time consuming. This is true if you do not use Mathematica or some other math program. If you use Mathematica, the problems can be worked in minutes. The Griffiths book uses wave mechanics notation throughout, which every physicist must learn. To learn the Dirac notation, the best book I found (and the most elegant qm book I found) is Quantum Mechanics, by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, and Franck Laloe.
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