My Prof. uses Shankar, but he isn't very clear sometimes. I bought Griffiths to compliment, and I find his order of introducing things and way of explaining things much more clear. I reference it regularly.

Being an undegraduate and having to take a quantum mechanics course isn't easy, especially being that the class is made up of some graduates and some undergraduates. The professor isn't exactly adept at explanations either, which makes things quite difficult. However, this book thus far is making my life easier. Griffiths gives a good mixture of "lecture" and examples overall, though the problem sets can be confusing. Some concepts aren't exactly introduced during the text and that makes things rather difficult. At least, it does in my opinion, but I'm an undergrad who isn't really adept at knowing what to do immediately. That, and theory isn't really my cup of tea. But I digress...

The format flows easily, and the text itself isn't too confusing to read. Not too shabby.

As an incoming freshman into an undergraduate university, I have read a few books on quantum mechanics, particularly those by Liboff, Fitzpatrick, and Sakurai. For the absolute beginner in quantum mechanics, I must say that this is the best book that I have ever found. In all ways, it succeeds:

- The author presents the text in a conversational style.
- The material and examples are concise, yet perfectly relevant.
- The problems in the book are of varied difficulty, and stars next to the problem narrate the difficulty. Problems of harder difficulty are usually supplemented with hints.

When I tried using Liboff, Fitzpatrick, and Sakurai, Fitzpatrick was effectivly useless, Liboff provided a decent overview, and Sakurai went very deeply into mathematics (too much for the undergraduate). So, if you're looking for an introductory book to QM, this is the perfect book for you! Just make sure you are familiar with concepts like calculus (obviously...), differential equations (again.. obviously...), and linear algebra. Even then, for linear algebra, Griffiths has a section in the back for this.

A very readable introduction to quantum mechanics. There really isn't much to say that hasn't been said in other reviews -- this book is really good and is a great resource for undergraduates learning quantum mechanics. Its only shortcoming lies in the fact that the power of the bra-ket formalism hasn't been sufficiently brought to attention; because of this, you might want to have another good book (like Shankar's "Principles of Quantum Mechanics") and compare it to this one from time to time.

This book literally saved me in quantum mechanics. Between my professor's willingness to help introduce us students to many of the challenges faced by quantum theory today and this book's ability to quickly and painlessly explain many of the concepts behind QM I actually enjoyed learning this subject.

The book not only has great explanations of numerous concepts essential to QM but always supplies one thorough example of a calculation relevant to each of these topics. Some of the problems in the book were a little difficult however. Particularly, I remember searching for hours through integral tables before I found the integral I needed to solve one of my assignment problems. That was a huge waste of time. But still, this book will set the necessary groundwork for whatever kind of understanding of QM you can manage.

This book will take you through the core topics on quantum mechanics. The text is well explained and easy to follow, the problems are doable. Be prepared for the math though. Before reading this book I suggest to do groundwork on engineering maths comprising functions of a complex variable, series solutions of differential equations, probability theory and linear algebra. There is one thing I can't get from books on quantum mechanics including this one: an elucidation on the development of the Schrodinger's equation.

This book is a fair book into the Quantum Theory. Just that, fair. Griffiths does a nice job in the first chapter of laying the foundation of the rest of the book. But in later chapters, he tends to assume to much and fails to provide a deeper mathematical inforamtion and tends to assume that the reader knows where he is going.

Tip to the buyer of this product: If you want a full understanding buy another Quantum book and use them side by side. This way you can get the most out of the course/personal pleasure.

David Griffiths' Introduction to Elementary Particles is probably the best book on the topic and, absurd though it may seem, the same seems to be true for his Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. While I would recommend Jim Baggott's books on the topic as a better *Introduction* for someone who, like me, has a math education far in the past, Griffiths' book come afterward.

Above and beyond the clarity of presentation there is the engaging tone of Griffiths' writing. His books are for physics what Charles Petzold's books are for programming in Windows; I can read page after page and stay alert. This is more important than you might think especially for an autodidact who has to keep himself motivated,

How does Griffiths manage to cram such a comprehensive exploration of non-relativistic QM into such a small textbook? Nearly half of the material is explained only through doing the chapter problems. If you are a self-learner or looking for a reference, take a look at other texts such as Liboff before this one. If you are using this as part of an undergraduate class, get ready for some serious problem sets.

The best introduction to quantum mechanics around, without doubt. Griffiths knows how to drive home the key concepts. Insufficient for a graduate student, but a highly desirable supplement to Shankar/Cohen-Tannoudji because Griffiths reminds you what is and what is not important concisely. There is no question that this book is brilliantly written. The smartest people are those who understand how to say things concisely and to the point, not pretentious people who hide behind equations and jargon because they cannot communicate ideas. Griffiths is obviously a very smart man.

This is written as a graduate physicist.

People who say that this book is insufficiently rigorous tend to be (but not necessarily) intellectual snobs who want to impress themselves and others by saying "Oh, Griffiths is too low level for me, I'm so great..." This is an INTRODUCTION, and that's what it serves to do...science was created by men based on intuition and logical clues, not by the gods of math (and I'd argue most of what is key in math came from mathematical clues and intuition before the proofs and notation...before derivatives and integrals were well defined, people were using them to solve physical problems).

The best introduction to quantum mechanics around, without doubt. Griffiths knows how to drive home the key concept. Insufficient for a graduate student, but a highly desirable supplement to Shankar/Cohen-Tannoudji because Griffiths reminds you what is and what is not important concisely.

This is written as a graduate physicist.

A good book with lots of subjects but you need to listen to the instructor carefully and some theorems are just coming from somewhere that you dont understand...

This is really a nice book to get a feeling about Quantum Mechanics. In just 450 pages, it covers most of the subject. Of course, with so few pages, you can't expect to see everything in depth.
The biggest quality Griffiths has, both in Introduction to Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Electrodynamics, is developing a kind of physical intuition about the subject. The biggest flaw is a lack of mathematical rigour. Conserning this book, for example, I missed an axiomatic structure-like treatment of the theory. I would really recommend Cohen's book to anyone who wish to learn more.

I find example problems the most useful part of a science text book, and the ones in this book were very unhelpful. They did not prepare me at all for the problems in the book. It is not very clearly written and interspersed with jokes that do not make it easier to read. They're fairly extraneous. It's not detailed enough to be clear. I dont get a very good idea of the material from reading. Find a longer book.

We used this book for our intro undergraduate Quantum Mechanics class, and I think it was pretty well written for the undergraduate level. However, the author does not take much advantage of the Dirac notation(in the 1st edition, anyways), and that was a bit of a hassle as my professor did use Dirac notation. Otherwise I think the book is not too hard to tackle, even though I'm sure there can be many improvements.

great book...but I would recommend a supplemental text JIC Griffith's explanation isn't clear...also he sometimes skips many algebraic steps at once and does not provide very many examples before excersizes ask about a specific topic.

This is my "go to" book for Quantum Mechanics when I need a good explanation of an otherwise difficult concept. Griffiths, as usual, provides a good book that both explains basic concepts and also leaves enough to to stretch the understanding of the reader. It would be advisable to use this book in conjunction with a course as not all answers are intuitive (what is intuitive in quantum mechanics?) but it still makes a great reference.

This is my "go to" book for Quantum Mechanics when I need a good explanation of an otherwise difficult concept. Griffiths, as usual, provides a good book that both explains basic concepts and also leaves enough to to stretch the understanding of the reader. It would be advisable to use this book in conjunction with a course as not all answers are intuitive (what is intuitive in quantum mechanics?) but it still makes a great reference.

Griffith takes a different approach to introducing QM by ignoring the historical development and stepping into the math right away. QM can be considered similar to taking a bunch of baby physicists and dumping them in the pool at the deep end.

His text shares the same problems all QM textbooks have which is they expect only the smartest students to be able to come up with the math.

Having taken nearly 2 years of QM I'd recommend helping students by thickening it up more along the lines of his E&M text.

What's really needed is a better version of Liboff who covers a lot of territory.

I used Griffiths's book for my undegrad course in Quantum Mechanics, and and as a student who prefers to self-learn everything, this book is a mess for self-learners. Some reviewers in here recommend it for other advanced texts, and that's true. As I read the book, I feel like Griffiths playing algebra game most of the time, and it leaves you many unanswered problems, many potholes in your understanding. He relegates many problems of QM to exercises, with the hope that by doing so will make you understand QM. Unfortunately, learning QM by doing HW the way Griffiths suggests would require at least 15 hours a week or more to master the subject. And as a student, I can't afford more than 10 hours a week just for a single class(I have other science and engineering classes too, plus I have extracurricular stuffs to do).

On the plus sides, I really like his informal presentation and his jokes (very subtle) in the book, which is rare for a textbook in a difficult subject like this.

I am a graduate student of physics. When it is time to do the second levle quantum homework what book to we (all in the class) reach for, Girffith's Quantum. This book is a MUST for any physics Graduate student, along with his E&M book.

It shows you how to "do" the problem, as well as theory.

Highly recomended, and I often use it as a referance.

A mediocre intro into such a fascinating subject. Instead of explaining concepts and helping develop abilities to solve problems, Griffiths plays silly algebra games throughout this text. Some truly elementary material he made rather complicated, explaining the obvious but omitting points crucial for understanding. With this book, forget about any intuitive knowledge of QM. If you like the monkey business of endless calculations, this one will not get you bored. But if you simply want to learn this fabulous branch of modern physics, consider Shankar, "Principles of QM", much more self-contained and well written. A little note for students to whom this reading is mandatory: Save your own nerves, and get the Solution Manual - will help you a lot on the exams.

it doesn't teach you much about concepts, but it is a great book for introduction of calculation.

The material Griffiths presents in this text is often as simply stated as I believe to be possible. That being said, the material Griffiths doesn't present (that is, that material which he leaves to the reader to figure out) is often both fundamental and very difficult. The subject is innately difficult all by itself - I feel that leaving so much of QM to the reader is unnecessary, if not cruel.

Undeniably, really understanding QM (which really no one ever does, but is a noble venture all the same) requires diving deep into the material in order to call it one's own. But why Griffiths feels he needs to withold information from the reader to this end is beyond me. No one is taking this class as a requirement; if we're reading the book, it's because we want to learn the material. Don't keep information from us!

The material Griffiths DOES present is, with rare exception, very clear and as mathematically elegant as undergraduate mathematics curricula permit. The book is all in all a decent text, and certainly a good introduction.

This is perhaps the best introduction to quantum mechanics one can get out there. This book follows a very unique and, in my opinion, quite effective path to the basic ideas of quantum mechanics. What I mean is that it does not follow the historical developments of the subject in the early part of the last century like some of the introductory texts do, nor does it take the axiomatic approach like some of the more advanced texts.

The author starts the story by throwing the one-dimensional Schroedinger's equation in the position representation right at you so that you will get acquainted with the wave mechanical view of quantum mechanics as soon as possible. You get to see a few important solutions to the equation in one-dimension and get a rough feel of some of the deeper concepts such as the uncertainty principle, wave-paricle duality, position-momentum conjugacy in a very technical and concrete way. He then introduce the abstract mathematical setting of quantum mechanics and generalize the statistical interpretation. He presents the solution to the hydrogen atom and then introduces angular momentum, which I personally think would be better done in the reversed oder. He then introduces the idea of identical particles and gives a very crude preview of systems of many particles. The above constitutes the first part of the book. In the second part, the author devotes mostly to the applications such as finer spectrum of hydrogen atom using perturbation theory, the variational method and scattering, etc. I think the author's approach has turn out to be very effective in my one-year-long experience in learning the subject.

The problems in the book are very helpful and well organized. There are simple-minded derivations as well as structured problems that require very involved soltuions. But overall the problems seem to be a bit too computational.

This book is very good for one to start learning quantum mechanics and that is perhaps why it is so popular throughout the universities in the US. The author is very clear in terms of his writing. A few more things I think would be helpful for beginningers. The book completely ignores the historical developments, such as some of the extremely important experiments done in the early 1900s. I think these are things one should know about before delving into this book. For more ambitious students, this book is far from being rigous and complete. It does not present a complete and coherent treatment of the abstract formalism. Symmetries and conversation laws are not mentioned. The Heisenburg picture appears in only one problem. The author does too much of his hand-waving trick in the later part of the book. And more. So for a more advanced treatment, I would suggest Shankar which is also extremely lucid. Sakurai is also very excellent and certainly very inspiring in terms of the materials but may be a bit more cumbersome for less experienced readers. For a completely rigorous, concise, as well as up-to-date treatment, Gottfried & Yan seems to be a good pick, which I am trying to ponder through myself.

This excellently written book is a great introduction to quantum mechanics for undergraduates. Only a minimum amount of physics background is required to grasp the major concepts of quantum mechanics, mostly freshman physics knowledge. However, you should be familiar with the ideas of quantum theory and so called "quantum philosophy". As Griffiths proclaims, the purpose of his book "is to teach you how to do quantum mechanics". He spends little time telling you exactly what you are doing. If you know about wave-particle duality, probability of outcomes, and quantized energy states of systems beforehand, it will make your studies easier.

You should be very comfortable with integration and solving differential equations. Many of the exercises feature nasty Gaussian integrals whose results are useful for understanding their respective sections. Some important topics are left to be studied as exercises, and solutions to problems are few and far between, especially in the first two chapters. This is thanks to the author's teaching strategy of having students learn (not practice) concepts by doing exercises. I personally believe that learning to do a problem incorrectly is more harmful than not learning about it at all.

The section on the Hydrogen Atom features a differential equation which must be solved using a power series method. This section will seem like nothing but hand-waving to most students who have only taken introductory differential equations. For the majority of problems, though, the solutions of the differential equations are not difficult to obtain.

The section on addition of angular momentum needs some clarification. The author does not explain the derivation of Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. Instead, you are immediately referred to a table.

This text could use a supplement with more detailed explanations of some topics and more worked-out problems. Overall, for a subject as difficult as quantum mechanics this is probably the best introductory text you can find.

Griffiths again made such a highly readable quantum mechanics textbook for undergraduate physics majors. But if you want to get deeper inside into the materials, you may want to work out a lot of problems. SOme of the companion type of problem books I recommend are Problems and Solutions in Quantum Mechanics (Hardcover) by Kyriakos Tamvakis ". There is a out of print problem book by Kogan and Galitskiy --Problems in Quantum Mechanics that I found extremely helpful. It's hard to find though. But half dot com or abebooks may have it.

Griffiths again made such a highly readable quantum mechanics textbook for undergraduate physics majors. But if you want to get deeper inside into the materials, you may want to work out a lot of problems. SOme of the companion type of problem books I recommend are Problems and Solutions in Quantum Mechanics (Hardcover) by Kyriakos Tamvakis ". There is a out of print problem book by de Harr Kogan and Galitskiy 0850860504 --Problems in Quantum Mechanics that I found extremely helpful. It's hard to find though. But half dot com or abebooks may have it.

I loved the book.. it is an excellent intro to quantum mechanics or for students who want to freshen up some things. Covers a good range of topics and keeps a good pace. I loved the fact that he put the Schroedinger's equation right at the first page... other books hide it at later paragraphs, creating thus an unnecessary fear...

Many people have reviewed this book, so I will give my two cents! I had to use this book when I was an undergrad looking back after looking at many quantum mechanics books, I find that I still use this one the most. What I like about this is that it short and sweet. (IT GETS TO THE FIGGING POINT)! There is a lot of problems to work on but the book only gives you so much information that you really need to do it with a teacher or another book. With the benefit of hinesight, that's not such a bad thing, a good book to go with this one is Shankar's (Don't move it around too much, alittle inside joke for us more wiser physicists! ;) )

Yes, I used Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, it was excellent. His Intro to Particle most people praise it too. However this book he does a bad job. 1. He almost has no examples, 2. Assumes you learn from the exercises, 3. Doesn't even show how an operator is represented by matrix, he somehow thinks you know it, 4. Bad job in Dirac notation.

The best book I have ever seen in Quantum Mecahnics is "Quantum Mechanics : Concepts and Applications" by Nouredine Zettili. Of course you probably didn't hear about it, but it is out there! Also Sakurai's "Modern Quantum Mechanics" is great, especially the first 3 chapters.

So, DON'T get Griffiths for Quantum Mechanics.

To gain understanding, this is one of the best books on quantum mechanics available. The first chapter presents some of the central philosophical issues that come with QM. He then clearly develops the basic tools of probability you need to do QM. The remaining chapters cover all the standard stuff in quantum mechanics. The only chapter that seems a bit weak is the chapter on "formalism" that covers matrix mechanics and Dirac notation. The book is clear, and the informal writing style of Griffiths makes it enjoyable to read and drives concepts home without being lost in formalism. Two recommended companion books that will help with doing the homework are "Quantum Mechanics Demystified" and the "Schaum's Outline of Quantum Mechanics", both of which contain lots of solved problems.

We are partially using this book in my undergraduate course. David Griffiths is a particle theorist, his reasoning is deeply experimentally rooted, and he wrote a very good book.

It presents the material in a sufficiently simple way. Griffiths spends an appropriate amount of time with each topic and sub-topic and he also chooses useful problems for the reader to increase her quantum mechanical skills.

His style is lively, witty, and refreshing. He chooses a pragmatic approach to quantum mechanics. Unlike some theorists, he does not try to minimize the amount of elementary assumptions; at least, it is not his primary goal. Instead, he supports the reader to create her own intuition and remember the answers to many questions, not just the very elementary ones.

Some people who like to see the complete derivations of everything may be disappointed. But quantum mechanics is a difficult enough subject so that everyone should try to become able to derive many things without a help of books.

I also like Griffiths' discussion of the philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics - of the realist position; of the orthodox position; and of the "shut up and calculate" attitude - and unlike other authors, he correctly concludes that the recent experiments combined with Bell's inequalities have proved that the orthodox position (in which the amplitudes must have a probabilistic interpretation) has been established.

Unlike other reviewers, I would even say that this book may be sufficient enough source of knowledge about elementary quantum mechanics even for the physicists who want to study particle physics and related fields. Of course, they will have to study quantum field theory and other issues, depending on their specialization, but that's a different question.

Griffiths has done a good job.

As usual, Griffiths replaces formalism and math with hand waving nonsense. While that may work to some extent in E&M, it fails miserably with a topic such as quantum mechanics. Also, as others have mentioned, Griffiths leaves a good chunk of the actual learning to exercises, which would be fine if there were answers in the back to select important problems or *gasp* a solutions manual, but Griffiths lacks both. Save yourself the grief and buy someone else's book. Griffiths, as usual, just doesn't cut it.

I decided to refresh my QM skills and decided to buy Griffith....bad idea. At the university I used Messiah, B.H. Bransden - C.J. Joachain and Cohen - Tannoudj. All these manuals are much more better than Griffith. If you are not following a course don't buy this book, everything is an exercise, it is interesting to prove your skills and awarness on the matter, but every real stuff is left as an exercise then no explanation at all: for example Ehrenfest theorem and all the mathematics used in Schrodinger equation...these as a starter.... I really don't understand the love for this book, probably as the author tells you QM with an hippy style...if you don't believe me go to the author site.... If you want to learn QM start with Feynman and Greeinstein then read Bransden or Liboff if you are at an undergraduated level otherwise go to Cohen or Sakurai.

Pros:
1. Griffiths has a knack for clearly elucidating each concept, and strikes a good balance between verbiosity and tersness. This makes the book an easy read.
2. There are plenty of excercises rangeing from easy to relatively difficult in each section.
3. The book covers a lot of ground, and is good as a first exposure to some upper level concepts (statistal mech., solid state phys, systems identical particles).
4. He spends some time covering the philisophical implications of the subject, which is really important.

Cons:
1. The first couple of chapters let you get comfortable with the Schroedinger formulation in 1D, but I feel like he focuses a little too much on calculations (of expectation values, uncertainties, etc...) This amounts to a lot of integration, without a whole lot of insight. (However he makes up for this in Chapter 3 when he introduces the formalism)
2. The book's good for a first (undergraduate) introduction to QM, but it doesn't go in depth on a lot of the topics it covers. It does a pretty good job on perturbation theory, but kind of skimps on Angular Momentum, symmetries, etc... Also it doesn't do anything with the path integral formulation.
3. The relatively low level of rigor means that this isn't a good upper level book.

Conclusion: Good introductory book, but you'll need more eventually.

It's very confuse book. The author don't give a good introduction that is very fundamental to teach an undergraduated student. The Mathematical formalism it's almost nothing, when a student in this level still needs a strong basis in that point.This book can maybe be a good introduction to an advanced course (only a introduction), for the students that just need to remind something that they already have learned. I recommend for a initiate undergraduated student the book of Shankar.

Nearly all of the first 8 chapters are straightforward and the problems follow directly from the chapters. The first course I used this book for was not too difficult comparted to the second course. So interpret reviews that say anything negative about the first 8 chapters of this book with great skepticism. One exception, chapter 4 is rather weak. As for any of chapters 9 and above, they flat out suck. You really notice some flakiness on Griffiths part in chapter 11. To wit, chapter 11 contains some formulas which do not hold in general but that is not made clear in the text. Find a better book for an advanced undergrad QM course.

Not a good book at all. It does not show any formal connection between Schroedinger theory and the classical Hamilton-Jacobi theory. It divides Theory and Application, but the presentation of "Theory" is minimal as instead of examinng the connections to classical mechanics or relativity (connections that would help the reader moving towards advanced physics) the "theory" section is full of applications like the square well, the harmonic oscillator, Hydrogen atom,etc. All this may make this book easy to read and write, but when you consider that the interpertation under which Mr. Griffiths is applying the theory under isn't even introduced until Ch. 3, it is easy only if you enjoy drills. No insult to author or reader intended. In passing: If you pay more than $30-35 for an Economy Paperback version of this or any book you've been had (the papeback quality is just not worth more)

Griffiths spends very little time on the physics of quantum mechanics (at least in the first FIVE chapters). The whole point of learing quantum mechanics is that it explains a range of phenomena, and Griffiths seems to think he'll teach you quantum by simply making you integrate this and that. You will not develop ANY INTUITION for QM using this book, and this is what makes this book dangerous; when faced with understaing things like magnetism, or other topics in condensed matter or particle physics the student (who spent a whole semester 'doing' QM) will be dumbfounded to learn that there is more to QM than solving a Schroedinger equation. ***What is the point of an undergrad physics book if it does not even try to develop some student intuition about its sujbect?*** If you've a professor who takes his/her job seriously, they'll probably recommend a less limited book, like F.S. Levin's 'Intro to Quantum theory' or Townsend's 'Modern intro to QM' and provide some basic supplements for wave mechanics.

The cat on the cover is amusing but the book itself is not that great. THe subject is incredibly difficult. THe treatment i'd say is average

I liked Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics a great deal. I liked his Electrodynamics book too. What I like most about Griffiths is that if something is important he will say so, if something is difficult he will say so, if something confounds everyone who sees it he will say so. Many other authors in physics pretend to be computers, and leave any intuition or feeling about the material they introduce entirely to the reader to learn for himself. We are not computers, we all understand things in very human ways, although I think the proud like to pretend everything is obvious to them and that personal comments such as Griffiths provides just insults their prodigous intelligence.
The only problem I have with the book is that the shmucks didn't put a single answer in there. That's why I didn't give it 5 stars. How are you supposed to learn it if you don't know where you might have gone wrong in your answers?

I didn't use this book undergraduate quantum, I used Saxon. And for graduate I used Merzbacher and also Cohen-Tenoudji. But now I'm preparing myself for the qualifier, and I've found that I've put aside all of my quantum mechanics books and I'm using this one. (I've also put aside all of my E&M books and I'm using Griffith's book for that part of the Quali too.) This book obviously doesn't have the depth of a lot of other quantum books, and it isn't designed to. I gets you into the subject, shows you what you need to know and moves you along to the next subject. But what makes the book excellent is a simple "rating" system that Griffith uses. He puts one star next to problems that are fundamental importance yet won't take hours to work through. This is valuable for review. If you're using this book for review, I also think that having a solutions manual for the problems to check your work is useful, you can pick them up on ebay. Griffith makes books for people like me, non-genius students educated in U.S. public schools. We don't want to be bored while we're learning. He keeps things interesting.

I read all sorts of math and physics books. I majored in math and like to keep the math parts of my brain working, even though my on-the-job application of mathematics consists of the operators +-/* Griffiths book is a gem for a person like me. I have been able to work through the entire thing by myself and I believe this has a lot to do with his style. He leaves out enough steps that you find yourself making marginal annotations that make you feel as if you're part of the whole learning process. He uses foreshadowing beautifully, to the point where I found that I was "like a kid at Christmas," picking at the corners of the wrapped presents under the tree: I researched, bought other books, surfed the web, heck - I even found myself in Berkeley's Physics Library!

If you want a dry, poorly written and edited tome, by all means, buy Sakurai (yes, I've read it, too). But if you want a book that either answers all the fundamental QM questions, keeps you interested and engaged, and - perhaps most important of all - sparks your curiosity to drive your research forward, then this is the book for you.

I took Quantum as an undergrad and used Gasiorowicz's 3rd Ed. I didn't learn much that was useful and I absolutely didn't gain any kind of physical insight. As a new grad student of Physics, I decided that I needed to take Quantum again. Luckily, we used Griffiths' Intro to Quantum. It was a wonderful experience. He builds the subject slowly and he gives phisical interpretations at every step.

This is a great text. Don't believe the 'nay-sayers'. This text is as useful as Griffiths' E&M text. The problems can be difficult, but they are labeled by difficulty. If you start off by working the simple problems, you will be able to solve all but the most difficult. The most important thing to remember is that the professor only assigns a minimum of homework problems. Many more problems should be solved to really understand the subject.

All in all, opinions here are immaterial. If you are reading this, it's becuase you have to use this text for a class. So,
Good luck!

First, I would like to say that this book IS: thourough enough for undergrads, extremely well written, contains good problems and is excellent preparation for grad-level courses.

Next, I would like to say that I don't think that reviewers who complain about this book have spent much time studying it. To the reviewers that complain that the text is not advanced enough I would say that the book is intended as an undergraduate text. If you know it well, you will prepared for a more advanced text like sakuri, messiah, etc(if jumping into these texts without a prior introduction is suitable for you, well then enjoy MIT.) I found this book to be very easy to read, contained great problems and gave me an excellent preparation for graduate QM. If I have any complaints about the text it would be that more dirac notation isn't used. However, the book contains eliciting questions and most importantly it teaches you QM.

I originally took a one semester undergrad class in QM and used a text by Gasiorowitz (I definately don't reccomend it.) The summer before Graduate school I was aware that I knew almost nothing of QM and I had liked Griffith's EM book, so I thought I would try his QM. I studied Griffiths text independently for the two summer months. I read chapters 1-8 and portions of later chapters. I also completed all of his starred problems in chapters 1-4 and many of the starred problems from chapters 5-8.

Using Griffiths text was one of the best decisions I have made in learning physics. I was very well prepared for my graduate QM classes. I would like to commend David Griffiths for his book. His writing style makes physics accessible by studying on your own. Not too many other authors of physics can do this.

If you take this class, you will find that every week you are being assigned for certaion problems, and next week, the proffessor will cut and past and scan solutions from the solution manual to the course web site, and their job is done. Book Sellers! Stop giving free solutions to professors!! you guys make american undergraduate student being less trained and less prepared for graduate school. lower the price and start sell solutions. the difference is smart student will know how to use them wisely, dumb ones will just copy them. I really want to see if the professors who teach the class can figure out those problems by themselves. and the one who need the solutions is the student.

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.

I have read the first 4 chapters of the 1st Ed, and carefully looked at the 2nd. The book is an introduction to wave mechanics, starting with the Schrodinger Eq on the first page! It feels like he doesn't begin at the begining. He should at least give brief comments on the development of quantum ideas (both wave and matrix) and JUSTIFY why the wave approach is more suited as an introduction. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
All these jumps add up: when you try to work the problems you are working with wavefunctions like you've known them all your life! One could find this and that, but I was never sure how the results could be used (in an experimental setting for example). What system does this wavefunction represent, or at least approximate, give the reader some motivation for working on a problem for almost an hour.
I would also say the book is dull, because the author explains every single math step he takes. Sometimes it is helpful, but most of the time it kills the thrill. In places where things are harder to explain in details this approach is abandoned; in chapter 3 you'll find plenty of math rushed. In the 2nd Ed. the author breaks some of the more basic part of Ch. 3 into an appendix, but doesn't really improve on the writing. Apperantly it is believed that students of physics have never heard of seperation of variables but are at home with complex vector spaces. This is an unjustifiable approach. I bet if you take an average linear algebra course in US, you won't encounter: complex vector spaces, properties of hermitian matricies, not too much on diagonaliztion and change of basis. The 2nd Ed. does add 3-4 more examples in each chapter; that should save some problem solving time. But I am afraid important things such as properties of the wavefunction are still left as excercises. I was generally bored and sometimes confused in my time with book. Due to lack of interesting physical (ideal or real) examples, I felt like I was collecting ideas rather than exploring them. Also since every (easy) step is shown, the chapters desperately need a good summary. I usually read the summary before the chapter itself to get motivation. I think things mentioned above should be improved on. Schuam's outline book won't help you much with problems in this book, that book solves problems of a more general nature.
Towards perfection:
A good alternative is: "Quantum mechanics: a modern introduction' by Das and Melissinos (1986, Gordon and Breach). It is full of great physical examples. I call it an 'alternative' because its
introduction of wave mechanics is not as complete as Griffith-like books. The wave approach, taken by Griffiths, suits some problems better than others in applications (like the eight other approaches to QM ,including the vector) but it also gives a 'can't see the forest for the trees' felling, the vector approach goes to the heart of QM. Fear not though, Das and Melissinos do provide a good introduction to wave mechanics. The best replacement for Griffiths is, A.C. Phillips 'Intro to QM' (Wiley, 2003). This is a nice, clear, as physical as you can get with waves approach to QM. Another great (good as Das & Melissinos, but slightly less 'physical') book is H.C. Ohanian 'Principles of quantum mechanics' (1990, Prentice Hall) which is nice and clear unified (uses both waves and vectors) presentation of quantum mehcanics.
Ohanian's text makes an excellent companion to Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics, which is the the best book
ever written on Non-Relativistic QM.

I used this text book for my undergraduate quantum mechanics class. In that class, we covered basically everything in Griffiths. I have since gone on to graduate school. I have found myself very well prepared and I still use Griffiths as a reference because it explains basic ideas and basic problems better than most other text books. More importantly, it provided me with a good foundation for further study.

This text book is a great introductory text book. It is a text book for students for whom quantum mechanics is a new subject. It is not a text book for people who already know any significant amount of quantum mechanics, nor is it a great text to use for independent study (unless you work the problems and have some way of checking yourself.)

Shankar is too advanced for most students new to the subject. It's also too much material to cover in a standard two semester course where the material is completely new. The only school I know of which uses it is Yale, and they count on students having a stronger background than most students at most schools have. Moreover, I know from personal experience that teachers at Yale focus on getting students to calculate the right answer rather than developing a solid understanding of the ideas behind the physics.

It's also too much material to cover in a standard two semester course where the material is completely new. Griffiths is designed such that it can be used for the quantum mechanics classes at most universities -- ie, if students haven't had every other physics class before they use this book or if some of their background is a little weak, they aren't screwed. This may not agree with some people's notions of how physics should be taught, but the reality is that you can't teach every physics class as if the students had already mastered every subject except that one. This is the reality at most universities.

The fact that this book is accessible does not make it bad. Physics is a wonderful, beautiful subject and we're being really stupid if we judge how "advanced" a book is by how difficult it is to understand. This is a suicidal attitude for our field. I've been reading physics books for a long time, and most of the ones which are difficult to read are difficult because they're not well written, not because the material is inherently difficult.

This book also cannot compensate for its misuse or for bad teaching. When I took the class, the teacher assigned some of the basic problems and some of the difficult problems. That way we made sure we knew the basics before we moved on to the difficult problems. If you're only doing the simple problems, it's your fault you're not getting anything out of it. If you're only doing the computationally difficult problems, you're missing some beautiful, simple examples. The physics is neither more real nor more important if it takes you a day to calculate rather than ten minutes.

This is a problem-centered book, but honestly, that's the way most of us learn. We don't remember things we read as well as we remember things we do. Similarly, new notation is not introduced until later because ideas are being developed first. Introducing too many things at once does not facilitate learning, only frustration. I suggest the people who think they already understand all of the ideas consider what Feynmann said -- "Nobody really understands quantum mechanics."

If you want answers, look them up. If you want to learn, use this book.