Quantum Mechanics: Shankar or Cohen-Tannoudji?

[Goldbeetle]

Has anybody read/use both these books? Which one is "better"?
Thanks.

 

[physiker_192]

I've used Shankar as first book on QM, found it to be very good.
As for Cohen-Tannoudji, it was rather distasteful for me. First the monster comes in two volumes, and the indexing of the content is not convenient (look at the appendices/chapter compliments), but in terms of content its fine. Some of the topics contained, are unlikely to be found elsewhere in introductory QM books.

Another favorite of mine nowadays is Zettili's.

So which is better ? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,that is for you to decide.update: there is an older thread with the same theme https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=206371

 

[Goldbeetle]

The thing I find confusing is the treatment of the continuous spectrum. Am I right if I say that all these books try to give you some intuition to justify the mathematical tools they use (rules of computation using the dirac function etc). Is there any book that does this in a more rigorous way (functional analysis?)?

 

[physiker_192]

The thing I find confusing is the treatment of the continuous spectrum. Am I right if I say that all these books try to give you some intuition to justify the mathematical tools they use (rules of computation using the dirac function etc). Is there any book that does this in a more rigorous way (functional analysis?)?

I've seen this book but did not use it:

http://books.google.com/books?id=rn...&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[Daverz]

Arno Bohm's book is more rigorous than most books, while still being a physics text.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0387979441/?tag=pfamazon01-20

You might also try this book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486453278/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

If you ask me, try to use some mixtures of QM textbooks cause even the mighty Cohen-Tannoudji cannot cover everything (though it has something like ~1000 pages in total).