Principles of Quantum Mechanics by R. Shankar

[Greg Bernhardt]

• Author: R. Shankar
• Title: Principles of Quantum Mechanics
• Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306447908/?tag=pfamazon01-20
• Prerequisities:
• Contents:

 

[Astrum]

Just got it today, the quality of the print is pretty bad, along with a math font that I find slightly unpleasing.

The font looks rather like a poorly scanned version of another book, which seems to be exactly the case with other Springer books I've seen.

As far as the content, I can't comment much yet, I've only gone through the first 20 or so pages, I'll update when I've formed an opinion.

 

[Daverz]

Is your copy an international edition?

Not good news to hear that Springer is doing a poor job with printing. I've seen this with the books published by Butterworth-Heinemann (printings of the Landau & Lifsh itz books with smudged unreadable fine print; I had to look for older pre-B-H printings).

 

[ppy]

Is your copy the hardback version ?
Does it state inside the book that it is the corrected version 2008 ?

 

[Daverz]

Is your copy the hardback version ?
Does it state inside the book that it is the corrected version 2008 ?

If you're asking me, no, the copyright in my hardback copy of the 2nd edition is 1994, ISBN is 0-306-44790-8, and it's the 12th printing.

I found the errata online and used it to mark up my copy.

The print quality is fine in my copy.

 

[Astrum]

Is your copy the hardback version ?
Does it state inside the book that it is the corrected version 2008 ?

Yes, it's the standard, printed in the U.S. version. Some pages are fine, while others seem to be very faded. My other text from Springer (Linear algebra Done Right) suffers from the same problems. It's a bit annoying, but it's not a huge problem.

 

[Daverz]

Just got it today, the quality of the print is pretty bad, along with a math font that I find slightly unpleasing.

I can see what you mean about the math font. It has a kind of mediocre LaTeX quality.

The best things about this book are the attention to detail in the explanations and the friendly writing style.

 

[WannabeNewton]

For the most part, I've never had a problem with Springer texts but all my Springer texts are in the Springer Graduate Texts in Mathematics series so maybe it's different for undergrad texts. The one exception is my copy of Lee's Riemannian manifolds text which has absolutely horrible LaTex print quality. None of the $i$'s or $j$'s have any actual dots over them and it drives me nuts.

 

[mpresic]

I am now examining this textbook.
Like most contemporary treatments they tend to treat the history of how QM developed lightly. This goes into the math first. Sakurai gives the shock treatment of introducing a 2 spin system right off the bat. I prefer to examine classical systems first and move to the quantum systems later. In this regard Shankar is fair. He treats it after all the mathematics.
Powell and Craseman (an old book) and Bohm (a good, complete inexpensive dover) treat the photoelectric effect and discuss the old quantum theory. Park (Quantum Theory) in dover looks good as well.