Andreol263 said:
Yes, it's a very good book, the only chapter that i recommend to you learn from another book(a proper book on the subject if possible) is Chapter 3:Linear Algebra, the biggest chapter in the book(100pages) and the worse chapter, because it's finish with diagonalization and don't go down on Vector Spaces, Inner Product spaces and so on.., things that you will need to QM, well, for linear algebra pick Linear Algebra Done Wrong by Treil, it's a free book!,and go from the very basics like what are vectors and linear combination to Dual Spaces, Tensors and 'Advanced' spectral theory ;)
OK, first of all, I highly recommend Boas's text. I've posted several comments to this effect, and even recommended it in my "So You Want To Be A Physicist" essay.
I want to address several issues being brought up here, starting with this one. The problem here is that one needs to carefully look at the intention of the book and who it is aimed for. Note that in the Intro., she is targeting a student who have just completed a sequence of calculus courses and about ready to start on more advanced undergraduate physics/engineering students. She is trying to introduce the students to the "tools" that they might need to start tackling these more advanced classes without scaring them off. So naturally, the level of depth that she can go into, without turning the book into a 10-pound gorilla, is limited. She said so in her Intro:
Boas said:
It is the intent of this book to give these students enough background in each of the needed areas so that they can cope successfully with junior, senior, and beginning graduate courses in the physical sciences. I hope, also, that some students will be sufficiently intrigued by one or more of the fields of mathematics to pursue it further.
This text was never meant to go into the level of detail and depth as, say, Arfken text. And it is also not intended solely for physicists, since her aim is for those in physical sciences, including engineering. Many of the examples in her book are engineering examples.
I've always said that a student shouldn't hear the words "orthonormal" and "eigen values" for the very first time in a QM class. It is extremely daunting to not only learn QM, but also learn the mathematics at the same time. This text tries to introduce such concepts to such students early enough in their undergraduate years before they have to use them. That, in essence, is what this text is for.
Scott Hill said:
Boas is a great reference book, but I taught from it once and my students found it difficult to learn from. (My plan was for them to read each chapter, and send me specific topics that confused them, which I would discuss in class. This is not the book to do that with, in my opinion, though of course others may have had more success.)
But I'm not so sure if there are other text, having the same range of topics, that can do that as well as this text. She has a very conversational tone to her text. In fact, if you look at the Students Solution Manual, it is almost as if she's sitting next to you and telling you exactly why each step of the solution is necessary. I haven't found a book of this type, aimed at students at that level, that is more easily understood than this.
Zz.
