David J. Griffiths (1)Rezensionen

Marry me, professor Griffiths

I used this textbook for Introduction to Quantum Mechanics I and Introduction to Quantum Mechanics II, which I took as a physics major during my undergraduate career. I referenced this text decades later to supplement the extremely basic quantum mechanics being referenced by an online chemistry course.

According to the title the book is intended to be an introduction to quantum mechanics, but in fact it introduces the reader to wave mechanics. This is the story with many other introductory books on the subject, and as an introduction to wave mechanics this book is not that bad, although not excellent.

But wave mechanics is not the whole story: the wave function formalism is not the most fundamental one and besides it is not general. There are a lot of quantum systems the state of which can not be described by any kind of function. The educational tradition is that usually students are introduced to wave mechanics first, and then, if necessary, to more general and fundamental state vector formalism of quantum mechanics.

From my experience I even doubt that introducing quantum mechanics in such a way, i.e. in form of wave mechanics, is the best way to teach the subject, but in case if someone wants to continue his way into quantum mechanics after this or any other introductory book on wave mechanics, I could recommend Lectures on Quantum Theory Mathematical and Structural Foundations by C. J. Isham.

This book is so incredibly easy to read it's hard to believe it's a full-fledged quantum mechanics textbook with equations and everything. A lot of people whine about this book which essentially boils down to technical nitpicking. It's the most accessible way to really do Q.M. out there.

This book is an introduction on electricity and magnetism covering:

Electrostatics
Electric Fields
Magnetostatics
Magnetic Fields
Radiation
Relativistic Electrodynamics

The style of the book is very concise. In my opinion the majority of the examples are a bit abstract. Still the explanations are clear and the main points are indicated in such a way that you cannot miss them. For instance, in the story about Faraday’s law, the sentence

“A changing magnetic field induces an electric field.”

is printed in bold with a box around it and lots of whitespace. To be honest, I first tried winging it, only reading handouts and lecture notes. This was a big mistake. Having this book in my possession was a huge improvement.

too good

This is one of my all-time favorite reference books. It covers vector analysis and electrodynamics very comprehensively. Although I've never had a class that has required this textbook, I frequently found myself using it as a reference in courses I took in optics and fields and waves, and even for brushing up my vector math skills.

I've never had this book required for a class, but it's a great reference. Where Brandsen & Joachain is a bit light on the math, Griffiths goes through lots of proofs which is very helpful in learning the physics of quantum mechanics.

I don't like griffiths writing. His EM book is better than this one because if I'm not mistaken that is his pet field. I find him to be self-adulatory and annoying. This book is very much lacking on the quasiclassical prequantum material that led to the formation of quantum mechanics. David Bohm's book is far more comprehensive. French and Taylor's book is much deeper on physical insight, whereas griffith's book is mostly mathematics. This book left me unsatisfied and unconfident and unconvinced of quantum theory.½

This edition is an update of Griffith's original particle physics text, published in 1987, updating the physics with all the recent changes to the Standard Model.

The main feature of IEP is that it is NOT a Quantum Field Theory book. This text uses the results of QFT, but does not derive them. It can therefore be most efficiently used as a bridge between Quantum Mechanics, and QFT.

The math required is no more onerous than that required for Griffiths Intro to QM text.

Elementary particles textbook at Cornell circa 1993. Feynman diagrams and the like.

Second year E&M textbook at Cornell circa 1991. Thorough and well-presented. Lots of exercises at the end of the chapters.

It's the dead-cat book! I don't think I'll ever get tired of using the covers of this book to explain the Schroedinger's cat paradox to laymen.

This is a great introductory text. Also, Griffith's footnotes always amuse the hell out of me.

Griffiths emphasizes drills in basic calculus and differential equations. You will do a great many integrations by parts and gaussian integrals in the first few chapters.

This is either a plus and a minus depending on your desires as a student, but there are many applications of QM that can be done with a
minimum of theory and Griffiths seems to emphasize those. For a deeper mathematical treatment, try Shankar.

Its major failing as a text is that it does not use Dirac's bra-ket notation extensively. Bra's and ket's are used widely in the quantum literature and the student should be familiarized with it straight off.