Textbooks for Junior-level quantum mechanics (such as PHYS3220/4410)
We are using McIntyre's "Quantum Mechanics". Here is his errata page.
There are many introductory quantum texts out there. If you're having difficulties their different styles, perspectives, additional problems and examples may be very useful to you. More than any other branch of physics, QM is impossible to learn well from a single text! Here are just a few suggestions:
P. Tipler- "Modern Physics" (slightly simpler level, more 2170-like)
Eisberg and Resnick- "Quantum Physics " (again perhaps more 2170-like in level, although they cover lots of interesting and often advanced examples)
John Townsend - "A modern approach to Quantum Mechanics". This one is very much like McIntyre's in terms of order of topics - I find it sometimes a little harder than McIntyre, but not always, and he has a lot of different examples.
The next are all very much at McIntyre's level (and have been used or considered as primary texts in the past) All of them start with a "wave-functions" first approach:
Griffiths, "Intro to Quantum Mechanics", 2nd ed.
S. Gasiorowicz- "Quantum Physics"
R. Liboff- "Introductory Quantum Mechanics"
R. Robinett, "Quantum Mechanics",
R. Scherrer, "Quantum Mechanics".
Other books of possible use for this course:
Feynman, Leighton, and Sands: "The Feynman Lectures on Physics, part III." (Part of a truly wonderful series of 3 "introductory" physics books.)
M. Boas, "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" (very useful for mathematical tricks and techniques you may have forgotten)
(The following was adapted from Prof. Michael Dubson notes for Phys 3220 Spring 2008)
Among the texts I have looked at carefully are:
Griffiths, Intro to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed. Good, but he starts off assuming you understand the Schrödinger Equation and know where it comes from. No clearly-labeled statements of the postulates of QM. Hardly ever uses the powerful and all-important Dirac notation. Griffiths makes many editorial asides which some find condescending ("swarmy" is the word Prof Degrand uses) but I like them.
Scherrer, Quantum Mechanics: An Accessible Introduction. What is presented is clear, but it leaves out a lot: No statement of the postulates. Virtually no mention of measurement. No discussion of the Uncertainty Principle. Does not overestimate preparation of the reader.
French and Taylor, Introduction to QM. Level is in-between sophomore and junior level QM. It's pretty good. One of the few QM texts that describes the classic experiments in detail.
Liboff, Introductory Quantum Mechanics. Not bad, but not as insightful or elegant as Griffiths. A bit long-winded, and slightly sloppy.
Park, Introduction to Quantum Theory, 3rd ed. A classic, first published 1964. I have not read much of this yet, but it looks quite good.
Feynman Lectures, Vol III (QM). Feynman's Vol.II (mainly E&M) is a great text, maybe the greatest. In contrast, I find Vol.III (QM) too disjointed and idiosyncratic. Feynman's take on QM is authoritative (of course!) and scattered full of little gems of insight, but at critical points, Feynman loses me. I'm just not smart enough for this (freshman) text.
D.T. Gillespie, A Quantum Mechanics Primer. A gem, but out of print! Short, and with the math stripped down to a bare minimum, this is a superb explanation of the formalism (the postulates) of QM. Absolutely the best explanation of what QM is about, at the undergrad level. However, not suitable as a textbook, because, in order to keep it short and to-the-point, Gillespie left out most of the standard topics and problems(no discussion of angular momentum or spin, for example). Gillespie has given me permission to copy his text, so I can loan you a copy for Xeroxing, if you wish. There are a couple of copies in the library.
R. Shankar, Principles of Quantum Mechanics. A wonderful book: clear, authoritative, and the only QM text that is funny. However, it is too advanced for a junior-level course. Suitable for 1st-year grad course. Also, rather slow starting: Shankar spends a 100 pages on math tools and classical mechanics review, before getting to QM.
Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu, and Laloe, Quantum Mechanics. A graduate-level text. Very clear, very thorough, very long. Has everything well explained in just 1500 pages. Excellent reference.
Incidentally, the text that I used as an undergrad at the University of Illinois in 1976/77 was "Modern Physics and QM" by Elmer E. Anderson (not to be confused with the Nobel laureate, P.W.Anderson). Not a bad book for looking up details, but disastrous as a first text, because it is intellectually dishonest! The author was apparently embarrassed by the Measurement Postulate (collapse of the wavefunction) so he just left it out. By leaving out this crucial ingredient of QM, Elmer dooms his readers to perpetual puzzlement, until they figure out to look at another book. More generally, Anderson tries to view QM as a logical extension of classical mechanics. This is wrong-headed. By refusing to embrace the non-classical essence of QM, Anderson has written a book that makes little sense.