Principles of Quantum Mechanics 2nd Edition by R. Shankar (Paperback)

Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Second Edition by R. Shankar is the Springer paperback textbook that develops quantum theory from its postulates, written for advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate physics students.

Shankar’s book grew out of courses at Harvard and Yale, and it reads like a patient lecturer. It opens with an unusually long mathematical introduction to linear vector spaces, reviews Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, then states the postulates and works forward through the harmonic oscillator, angular momentum, spin, perturbation theory, scattering and the Dirac equation. The second edition rewrote the mathematical introduction, added time-reversal invariance and expanded the treatment of path integrals and their applications.

What's included

• Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Second Edition, by R. Shankar
• Paperback, published by Springer
• ISBN-13 9781461576754
• Separate treatment of mathematical theorems and physical postulates
• Extensive coverage of path integrals
• Exercises throughout, many with solutions

Who it's for

Physics majors in a senior quantum mechanics course, first-year graduate students preparing for qualifying exams, engineers and chemists who want a rigorous but self-contained treatment, and self-studiers who found Griffiths too light and Sakurai too terse.

Why this edition

The second edition is the one in print and the one assigned in courses. Its self-contained chapters mean you can study path integrals or the Dirac equation without reading everything before them. The math-first structure is the reason many students who struggled with quantum mechanics elsewhere finally understand it here: nothing is used before it is defined.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shankar an undergraduate or graduate quantum mechanics book?

It bridges both. Strong undergraduates use it in a two-semester sequence; graduate students use it alongside Sakurai for qualifying exams.

How much math do I need?

Calculus, differential equations and some linear algebra. The first chapter rebuilds the linear algebra you need in Dirac notation.

Does it include solutions to exercises?

Many exercises have answers or worked solutions in the text; it is not a full solutions manual.

Details