Well, distortion of the atmosphere is not the reason we need to place JWST in space. Adaptive optics have reached the point where we can operate a 10m-class telescope at it's diffraction limit (ie, effectively remove the blurring effects of the atmosphere). Thus, from a resolution standpoint, there is no reason to spend the immense amount of money necessary to blast a telescope into space. However the atmosphere does block certain wavelengths of light. Thus X-ray and IR telescopes need to be placed into orbit to get above the filtering effects of the atmosphere.

My two cents are against Shankar. I didn't enjoy the book at all. Griffiths is good, but not detailed enough. To be honest, I haven't seen a great QM book, much less a good professor of it.