Modern QM by Sakurai and Napolitano

[DrClaude]

I have recently received an inspection copy of the 2nd edition of Modern Quantum Mechanics by Sakurai, now co-authored by Jim Napolitano.

Here goes some free publicity: I love this book! It is like the old Sakurai, simply better. I know that many here at PF recommend Sakurai for advanced undergraduate QM, so I would like to let you know that it just got better.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Thanks for the information.

 

[Buffu]

I have recently received an inspection copy of the 2nd edition of Modern Quantum Mechanics by Sakurai, now co-authored by Jim Napolitano.

Here goes some free publicity: I love this book! It is like the old Sakurai, simply better. I know that many here at PF recommend Sakurai for advanced undergraduate QM, so I would like to let you know that it just got better.

What's new ?

 

[DrClaude]

What's new ?

Have a look at the preface to the 2nd edition: http://assets.cambridge.org/97811084/22413/frontmatter/9781108422413_frontmatter.pdf

It lists the changes that have been made. Overall, it appears more contemporary in its discussion of the topics. The typography has also been completely redone, and it is visually very appealing.

 

[George Jones]

I know that many here at PF recommend Sakurai for advanced undergraduate QM, so I would like to let you know that it just got better.

Actually, in North America, Sakurai (and Napolitano) is more often used in grad school quantum mechanics (from back cover: " a graduate-level, non-historical, modern introduction"). Griffiths or Townsend or McIntyre are often used for undergrad quantum mechanics.

 

[DrClaude]

Actually, in North America, Sakurai (and Napolitano) is more often used in grad school quantum mechanics (from back cover: " a graduate-level, non-historical, modern introduction"). Griffiths or Townsend or McIntyre are often used for undergrad quantum mechanics.

That's reasonable, but I would still put Sakurai at the upper undergraduate level, as I think it is accessible to a student who has worked with Griffiths or McIntyre in a first QM course. I would hope that a grad student would be able to tackle Ballentine directly .

 

[smodak]

I have recently received an inspection copy of the 2nd edition of Modern Quantum Mechanics by Sakurai, now co-authored by Jim Napolitano.

Here goes some free publicity: I love this book! It is like the old Sakurai, simply better. I know that many here at PF recommend Sakurai for advanced undergraduate QM, so I would like to let you know that it just got better.

Great book. But I believe the 2017 edition is just a reissue. If I am not mistaken the 2nd edition was published around 2010 (by Pearson).

 

[DrClaude]

Great book. But I believe the 2017 edition is just a reissue. If I am not mistaken the 2nd edition was published around 2010 (by Pearson).

You're right. I just found the mention that it was previously published in 2011. I was only aware of the revised edition of 1994. But the typography appears to me new.

 

[vanhees71]

That's reasonable, but I would still put Sakurai at the upper undergraduate level, as I think it is accessible to a student who has worked with Griffiths or McIntyre in a first QM course. I would hope that a grad student would be able to tackle Ballentine directly .

It's the text we used in our theory course. At my university (TU Darmstadt) the QT came after the "Vordiplom" in the theory course (after Mathematical methods, analytical mechanics, classical electrodynamics). I loved this text, because it helped me to get rid of all the sins of physics didactics imposed on me as a high-school student and by the experimental-physics lecture, tormenting us with "old quantum mechanics" like the Bohr model of atoms ;-)).

Interestingly, we had a "revised edition", edited by S. F. Tuan, which differed from the 1st edition by including some more topics like the path-integral approach and the electric and magnetic Aharonov-Bohm effect and things like this.

It's still my favorite introductory QM 1 text.

Another brillant one is available only in German: E. Fick, Einführung in die Grundlagen der Quantentheorie. It's the only book I know, which gives a very clear exposition of the general picture of time evolution!

 

[dextercioby]

I don't understand the joy (?) behind the second edition (actually, one has a new author, so it is actually a new book), because all additions are definitely outside the spirit of the late JJ Sakurai. If the fellow was still alive at the moment of Napolitano's rewriting, he wouldn't have approved with these additions (one outrageous chapter on "relativistic quantum mechanics", total butchering of the 2nd chapter by adding useless material which would be at an introductory/undergraduate level, unnecessary stuff in chapter 3, etc.) which make the charm of this book simply go away. :(

 

[vanhees71]

What? There's a chapter on "relativistic quantum mechanics" in this 2nd edition? Usually this means they treat relativistic QT as if one could treat it in 1st quantization as non-relativistic QT, and this is an outdated view since the early works on QFT by Jordan, Dirac, and Heisenberg, let alone in the 21st century. Ok, Bjorken and Drell vol. 1 is to blame for this sin too, but writing even a chapter 50 years later in this misleading way is indeed against the spirit of Sakurai. When I recommend it, I refer to the older version ("Revised Edition" coauthored/edited by Tuan, not Napolitano).

The same was done to the brillant book on mathematical methods in physics by Courant and Hilbert. I fortunately have the original two-volume version. I think, one must not allow to rewrite such all-time classics of the textbook history in an attempt to make them "modern". You always get something worse than the original!

 

[JD_PM]

Hi PF Community!

I am looking for an undergraduate/graduate Quantum Physics book focused on problem solving (or at least with a good amount of useful problems) setting aside Griffiths and came across Sakurai's book.

Based on the online version (1994), I see there are a bunch of problems per chapter.

Should I go for Sakurai or there's another book on QP more focused on problem solving?

Thanks.

 

[George Jones]

I am looking for an undergraduate/graduate Quantum Physics book focused on problem solving (or at least with a good amount of useful problems) setting aside Griffiths and came across Sakurai's book.

Based on the online version (1994), I see there are a bunch of problems per chapter.

Should I go for Sakurai or there's another book on QP more focused on problem solving?

I am not sure if it is at the right level or if it has the material that you want, but "Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications" by Nouredine Zettili contains many examples and detailed solutions to many problems.