Textbook hunting

[Ointhedwarf]

Hi,

I'm new to the forums and I need help finding certain books or rather books with particular knowledge prerequisites and handling of the subject. I can only offer examples of such textbooks to make my point and those are David J. Griffith's Introduction to electrodynamics or Mardsen-Tromba's Vector calculus. These books treat fundamental subjects of science starting with basic mathematical knowledge and later advancing to especially complex problems. I'm not sure if this is a question of.. taste, but these two have fulfilled my demands greatly mainly because of the way they treat the subjects by slowly evolving from simple problems. Concerning the subject of these textbooks I'm mainly looking for physics textbooks (since that's what I'm studying) though books on related fields, namely mathematics and chemistry, are also desired. What are your thoughts? What books would you recommend?

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[Ointhedwarf]

Ok I find it quite strange that after 1,633 views nobody had anything to post.. Maybe you have misunderstood my post. I'm simply asking your views on textbooks, mainly physics, that you have found especially useful. For me the points in electromagnetism are almost covered by Griffith's book for example, have you experienced something similar?

Edited June 30, 2012 by Ointhedwarf

[studiot]

Ok I find it quite strange that after 1,633 views nobody had anything to post..

 

Well this is my first view, but i would hazard a guess that you need to be more specific.

 

For instance for Chemistry I once found

 

Introduction to Paint Chemistry by Turner useful, but I doubt that is what you meant.

Edited June 30, 2012 by studiot

[Ointhedwarf]

Yes you're probably right.. What I mean to find is textbooks concerning particular fundamental fields. You may have different opinions on what is considered fundamental but I'm talking about fields like Classical mechanics in physics or Statistics and Probability in Maths. For example concerning Classical Mechanics I've perused both Alonso & Finn's and Serway's books and in my opinion Serway's style is mostly problem solving while Alonso & Finn's is more about the nature of laws and equations. I find both of them useful for different reasons but neither has made me want to actually read the book from start to finish like I felt about Griffith's book.. So I'm really looking for books that have caught your attention, concerning such fields, and the reason you would prefer those books in place of others.

Hope that helped

[studiot]

Hope that helped

 

Not really.

 

You do need to be a lot more specific both about subject and level.

 

Waves? Solid state Physics? Continuum Mechanics? Tensor Mechanics? Quantum Mechanics ? Granular Materials Mechanics?

Particle Physics? Inorganic Chemistry? Analytical Chemistry? Physical Chemistry? Surface Chemistry? Electrochemistry?.....................

[Ointhedwarf]

Ok I see what you mean, lets stick to the basics. Classical Mechanics, Waves, Statistical Physics, Introduction to Astrophysics, Hamiltonian Mechanics, Modern Physics, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity.

[studiot]

Try

 

Dynamics and Relativity : W. D. McComb : Oxford University Press

 

An integrated treatment of classical mechanics and special relativity

 

The Manchester Physics series has some good volumes.

 

Elementary Fluid Dynamics : D J Acheson : Oxford

 

Is first class

Edited July 1, 2012 by studiot

[Jebus]

For Astronomy, check out The Great Courses, Understanding the Universe, An Introduction to Astronomy 2nd Edition by Alex Filippenko. It's not a textbook but it is a wealth of information on DVD, it also comes with a small book for reference. It's also very expensive, but that website has deals all the time.