Comments on: The Greatest Physics Textbook!

By: Boyd

Boyd — Sun, 14 May 2006 01:41:23 +0000

well, i think this is a lot of personal taste…you know it depends if you are going for a monograph or pedagogy or writing style.

For pedagogy, i think many (american?) students agree
that griffiths’ textbooks (EM and QM) are both masterpieces. It’s too bad that no classical mechanics or statistical mechanics books share the same place.

My personal taste regarding other pedagogical textbooks is: bowley and sanchez for undergrad stat. mech., and I really liked landau for classical mechanics, but i realize that it’s not to everyone’s taste. I’ve never read Reid, but i hear that’s a good stat mech book also.

at the graduate level,
I’ve never put down Ryder’s QFT.
I think there are many good quantum books: shankar, baym, and sakurai come to mind. I enjoy both McQuarrie and Pathria for stat mech… Actually, McQuarrie in general i think it a really good author, i’ve read a few of his books now. I like fetter and walecka for classical mechanics at this level…but i dont really have a favorite here.

Some others worth mentioning: Strogatz’s nonlinear dynamics, Bruus and Flensberg wrote a nice MBT book, and Tritton’s fluids is nice reading.

ok..i’m done with my two cents. if i omitted subjects it’s because i dont have any text that sticks out at exemplary of great instruction and i am neglecting good monographs altogether.

By: J. Doe

J. Doe — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:59:35 +0000

I would nominate griffiths E&M because of the oratory style in which it is presented (he actually talks similar to how he writes) and because he is one of the only authors who has managed to demonstrate (and not just claim) the elegence of the theory.
That said, anyone who claims his quantum book is the best book of all time needs to think how much non mechanical understanding they were able pull from the book.

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 06:30:47 +0000

hack on Aug 25th, 2005 at 12:49 pm

When I was at Caltech many years ago, I think I was one of the only students in my class who read more than a couple chapters of the Feynman lectures. Of course back then you could still get a live performance from the man himself. If only I had known about them in high school; we didn’t have the internet or Amazon back then, and I was stuck with the sublimely awful Haliday and Resnik for all of my physics needs.

Are you talking about the Physics X (undergrad) course taught by Feynman? Someone I know (Caltech Physics grad, Class of ‘77) was telling me about how it was a Q&A format, to give the students a “demo” of how a physicist solved a problem.

Funny thing, I used Halliday & Resnick for the Phys 106 course (part of the undergrad 106/107/108 curriculum at UIUC, designed by Leo Lavatelli..a Caltech alumni who was a classmate of Robert Leighton..who was involved with the Feynman Lectures). Funny thing, we never had any exposure to the Feynman Lectures..although I remember thumbing thru it in the library. I now have the 3 volume set, & plan to go thru it in the near future.

sidenote:
Recently, I ran into Alan Leighton over our common interest in chasing solar eclipses (http://www.comet-track.com/eclipse/secl.html) & he mentioned how his dad was a physicist, wrote a modern physics text, used to take him up in the San Gabriel mtns for Comet Ikeya-Seki, etc. I didn’t know at the time, WHO Robert Leighton was. You might recall a Ralph Leighton (Feynman’s protege), as seen on that NOVA episode on Feynman & Tannu Tuva..that’s Alan’s brother.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:20:35 +0000

It will happen Cygnus. Readers will have to vote, after the selection of the top five…. I was hoping to set it up this week…but it does not look like it will happen.

-cvj

By: Cygnus

Cygnus — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 11:36:01 +0000

I just came across Pauli’s article on Relativity in the Encyclopaedie der mathematischen Wissenschaften. An english translation of the same by G. Field was brought out by Pergamon Press. Though not exactly intended as a text book when written, this article by Pauli (written when he was around 20) can definitely serve as a wonderful textbook for GR.

And by the way, when do you plan to make pronouncements about the winners of this and the other running competitions on this blog?

By: R. Michalak

R. Michalak — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 13:51:17 +0000

In addition to all the standards above, I would include Mathews and Walker – I found it to be a great, albeit brief introduction to math methods. Some people hate it; I do not know why.

By: Celebrity Throwdown? Einstein versus Newton | Cosmic Variance

Celebrity Throwdown? Einstein versus Newton | Cosmic Variance — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:29:37 +0000

[...] You’ll recall my (faux) rant about the “Greatest ….” business that is popular in Britain. I co-opted the idea and did a series on physics papers (yes, we get to vote on that soon), physics textbooks, and popular science books. The point is that the discussion point itself is silly, but the act of having the discussion is valuable. That’s why it is worthwhile…. [...]

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:12:59 +0000

The books by Landau and Lifshitz are very good.

QFT: The book by Ryder is ok for undergraduate students.

GR: ”A short course in General Relativity” by J. Foster and J.D Nightingale can be used for undergraduate students.

Statistical Mechanics: The book by F. Reif (forgot the title).

By: Cygnus

Cygnus — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:28:23 +0000

Most of the books which I would've mentioned seem to already have been dealt with, so let me name Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham, (I know it's a maths book, but this should count if Div, Grad Curl and all that can count, for much the same reasons). Other than that I would second, The Feynman Lecture, (Wheeler's)Gravitation, and Zee's QFT book.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 01:41:42 +0000

The discussion is still on! I said I would let it run for a while. We will move to the next phase soon. Fear not. Not too late to make more pitches….

I’ll need to sit down and make a short list of five, as promised. Then you get to vote. Exciting eh? Physics by democracy…

-cvj