Book on Quantum Mechanics needed

[QuantumReg]

Hi All!

Does anyone know about some books on QM over the net?
I know there is Cohen Tannoudji's book, which is some kind of a bible in this topic, but for now I only want to feed my interest and to call up my knowladge in QM. I have been learning it at the university though, but that was a long time ago. So what I need is some kind of a hardcore tutorial. Does something like this even exist for free on the net, or do I have to buy the Cohen Tannoudji book instead?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks guys!

 

[chroot]

There are many QM textbooks available; Cohen-Tannoudji is not the book I'd start with, if I were you. There are some gentler books available, like Griffiths.

- Warren

 

[QuantumReg]

Is it available on the net, or only in book stores?

 

[gongchangjie]

i want one copy of Cohen-Tannoudji .who has it? i will be grateful!

 

[QuantumReg]

I also want a copy of Cohen Tannoudji book, but yet I haven't found one :(

 

[eggman]

Amazon sells the 2 volume set for 181.00 dollars

 

[Dr Transport]

Here are links to a couple of courses online...

http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/qm1/

http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/qm2/

http://zopyros.ccqc.uga.edu/~kellogg/docs/rltvt/rltvt.html

http://vergil.chemistry.gatech.edu/

I agree with chroot, Griffiths is a good start, although I have said many times before on these forums that I personally do not care for it. At this point in time, there really isn't a better text out there, some of the older texts could be consulted. The Schaums outline in Quantum Mechanics is really good and I am considering the purchase to have a qm book on my desk at work for quick consultation. Cohen-Tannoudji is not the text to start with at all, over the years I have found it to be more palatable but I know a whole bunch more now that I did in grad school. The more you know about qm, the more you will like it but I felt that I was not getting the eduaction I needed when using Cohen-Tannoudji. I would suggest Baym, Messiah, Schiff or Slater, not in that order. Schiff is the best out there by far if you can get it, I have 2 copies and they get used all the time. Slater is dated but readable, Messiah is a classic and Baym has been used in more than one school I looked at for grad school. Another choice is go with Yarivs' Quantum Electronics, it has a decenbt amount of qm and leads directly into the application of it. It was refreshing to re-read it a few years after grad school.

 

[inha]

you can get messiah from dover for about $20 or so. that's a pretty good choice if you can't afford the $180 for example.

 

[Rach3]

The two online QM notes selected by 't Hooft in his collection are

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/home.html
(Michael Fowler)

and

http://walet.phy.umist.ac.uk/QM/LectureNotes/
Niels Walet

(I have not reviewed these, but 't Hooft has.)

 

[DarkEternal]

i prefer shankar; his treatment is reasonably mathematical and very clear.

 

[QuantumReg]

These two notes look quite good! Thanks Rach3!
Anyway, I prefer the Bra-Ket notation (I learned QM using this stuff)...
Does anyone know about some good lectures online which uses this?

 

[Rach3]

The two notations are complementary. You could do wave mechanics with position eigenkets, but it would be an excess. It's extremely easy to translate: e.g., a wavefunction $$\psi(x)$$ is simply a state with representation

$$| \psi \rangle = \int dx \, \psi(x) | x \rangle$$

in the position eigenket basis. (This means $$\hat{X}\left|x\rangle=x\left|x\rangle$$). The eigenkets correspond to Dirac delta functionals as wavefunctions; the expansion above is the same as saying

$$\psi(x)=\int dy \, \psi(y) \delta (y-x)$$.

We don't gain anything by being more abstract!

(and translating the other way, $$\psi(x)=\langle x | \psi \rangle$$).

I think Townsend's textbook starts off with a detailed introduction to ket notation, in the context of spin-1/2 particles. It's based on Sakurai's (graduate) textbook, so it's probably more thorough with Dirac notation than Griffiths.