Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Pmb on 10/10/2013 04:25:53

Title: What textbook recomendations can you offer?
Post by: Pmb on 10/10/2013 04:25:53

I'm creating a list of textbook recomendations and would like to hear what students who post here are or have been using in their physics classes and if they'd recomend them to others.

Title: Re: Textbook recomendations
Post by: JP on 11/10/2013 15:56:30

What level?  Intro, advanced undergaduate, graduate?

Title: Re: Textbook recomendations
Post by: Pmb on 11/10/2013 16:01:54

Quote from: JP on 11/10/2013 15:56:30

What level?  Intro, advanced undergaduate, graduate?

All levels from intro physics in college on up. Maybe even some for the layman if its that good.

Title: Re: Textbook recomendations
Post by: JP on 11/10/2013 21:51:42

I don't know of truly good lower level undergraduate texts as most are interchangeable.  I also don't know of great upper level classical or statistical mechanics texts or classical mechanics texts.

E&M: Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths is a classic for E&M (advanced undergraduate) as is Classical Electrodynamics by Jackson (at the introductory graduate level). 

QM: Principles of Quantum Mechanics (Shankar) and Modern Quantum Mechanics (Sakurai) are both excellent graduate level texts.  I don't know a great undergraduate text (mainly, as much of QM isn't accessible until you have
graduate level mathematics).   Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics by Mandel and Wolf covers classical optics (partial coherence) and quantum optics in a lot of depth.  It's definitely an upper level graduate text though, and partial coherence is a very specialized topic.

I'm wary of writings for laypersons, since almost all examples I see oversimplify things to the point where they teach misleading ideas.

Title: Re: Textbook recomendations
Post by: Pmb on 11/10/2013 22:53:16

Quote from: JP

I'm wary of writings for laypersons, since almost all examples I see oversimplify things to the point where they teach misleading ideas.

I'm the exact same way myself. That's why I never picked up a layman's book on string theory or quantum gravity. I don't want to have to unlearn anything when I take them full bore.

Thanks for the recomendations. Most of them are already in there and the other ones I'll add.