Built on Facts

Here are some of the various physics books I’ve found helpful.  This is not at all an exhaustive list; it only consists of some of those books I have personally used and found to be satisfactory.  The list will grow with time.  I hope these will also help you become better at doing physics.  As as added bonus, books purchased through these Amazon.com links will give me a very small slice of Amazon’s profit, at exactly no extra cost to you.  Even if you buy an entirely different book but arrive at the Amazon page via these links, you’ll be helping support me and this site.  This is especially great because grad school is not a high paying job!  Let me know if you have any comments on these books, or if there’s any technical difficulty with the links.  Now, on to the books:

Introductory Physics:

Fundamentals of Physics - Halliday, Resnick, and Walker
I learned introductory physics from this book.  It’s comprehensive, accurate, and calculus-based.  You’ll find the usual classical mechanics followed by E&M, but also decent introductions to thermodynamics, relativity, and extremely basic qualitative quantum mechanics.  The problems are numerous and challenging at various levels of difficulty for the beginning scientist or engineer.

University Physics - Young and Freedman
This is a non-calculus based text for students who need an introduction to physics below the level required of an engineer or physical scientist.  In subject areas it’s quite similar to Halliday above, but at a simpler level.  The problem selection is extensive and helpful.  I never studied from this book, but it’s one of the ones I teach out of.  Not that I have any say in the textbooks the department uses, but I wouldn’t have any problem at all recommending it.

Quantum Mechanics:

Quantum Physics - Gasiorowicz, S.
As Roger Ebert might say, I hated hated hated this book when I was using it as an undergraduate.  It’s thin, explains things with extreme economy of words, and the problems are quite difficult in comparison to the depth of explanation in the chapters.  It assumes a very decent mathematical background in linear algebra / matrix methods / Hilbert spaces.  That said, now that I understand the material it’s a great reference.  I think I would have really liked this book if my math background had been stronger, and it’s still a good source of brushing-up on a few basic topics while taking grad school QM.

Lectures on Quantum Mechanics - Baym, G.
This one’s a little bit exotic.  It’s lecture notes rather than a standard textbook treatment.  On the other hand, you’ll often hear that perspectives from different books will often help communicate the material better than just one book.  And this book definitely gives a different perspective.  I don’t know of any “If You Only Get One QM Book” type-books to recommend, but if you only get two this should be the second.

Modern Quantum Mechanics - Sakurai, J.
A great book whose only flaw is its comparative lack of comprehensiveness.  But for a one-semester graduate QM 1 class it’s hard to beat.  What it does cover - scattering especially - it covers very well.  Tons of great problems, and believe it or not there’s a few decent worked examples.

Quantum Mechanics - Merzbacher, E.
For what it’s worth, I took a class from a brilliant professor who was student of Lev Landau and he assigned this as his primary textbook.  It covers a lot of ground but has the usual quantum textbook flaw of failure to explain in depth and apply to some meaningful problems.  You and I are smart enough to figure things out by ourselves, but many books including this one are too much like learning to drive by looking at photos of particularly beautiful car parts.  Don’t think I’m being too harsh though, it’s really not a bad textbook and it has the advantage of covering a lot of ground fairly elegantly.

Quantum Mechanics: Non-Relativistic Theory - Landau, L. and Lifshitz, L.
This one’s pretty advanced and not well suited for self-study at all.  But being advanced is good for future learning.  It’s also a brick of a book that includes all kinds of things that most books gloss over, such as molecular wave functions and inelastic scattering.  And it’s cheap.

Electricity and Magnetism:

Introduction to Electrodynamics - Griffiths, D.
The classic undergraduate text.  It’s a fun, conversational read and nonetheless pretty thorough and rigorous.  You’ll more than likely be assigned this one for undergraduate E&M but if not you should definitely buy it for your personal study.

Classical Electrodynamics - Jackson, J.
What I say matters not in the slightest.  You’ll be assigned this for grad school whether you want it or not.  You’ll hear things like “classic”, “comprehensive”, and “definitive”.  You’ll also hear things like “confusing”, “impossible”, “dense”, and “death”.  Both sets of words are accurate.

Mathematical Physics:

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences - Boas, M.
I liked it as an introduction, but its utility rapidly diminishes as you go on in your studies.  It’s not deep, but it’s a very serviceable introduction to the basic mathematical tools of the physics trade.  There’s very little rigor and a lot of advanced topics left out, but it’s an intro textbook.  After your junior year of undergrad you’ll never crack it again.

Mathematical Methods for Physicists - Arfken, G. and Weber, H.
This one on the other hand is both staggeringly complete and quite rigorous by physics standards.  There’s really no real competitors in the category of comprehensive math methods books for serious physicists.  You can also use it to beat down vicious dogs.

Classical Mechanics:

Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems - Thornton, T. and Marion, J.
My undergraduate classical mechanics class used this book, and my friends generally gave it mixed reviews.  I don’t know why, it’s one of my favorite undergraduate physics textbooks period.  It covers everything that needs to be covered, and it does so cleanly.  It’s one of those rare books in the ideal zone which avoids both being too simple to learn but not one of those books you already have to understand the material to appreciate.

Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics:

Thermal Physics - Schroeder, D.
Covers both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics on a senior undergraduate level, and does so in a lucid way.  What else is there to say?  Graduate thermodynamics is going to be extremely difficult no matter what you read as an undergraduate.

Thermodynamics - Fermi, E.
Worthwhile because aside from its pretty good quality there’s also the name on the cover and it’s really cheap.  It’s very much just a thermodynamics book, with essentially no statistical mechanics to be seen.  But what it covers it does so fairly clearly.

Mathematics:

Calculus: Early Transcendentals - Stewart, J.
What I learned Calculus 1, 2, & Vector Calculus by.  It’s one of the standards of intro mathematics, and I have not found fault to pick with it.  Differential equations are not covered in any detail, but that’s usually a separate class anyway.

Introduction to Complex Analysis - McGehee, O. C.
This is a bit of an obscure textbook which you may never have heard of.  It’s written strongly from a mathematical perspective, but it goes out of its way to mention and explain a few physics applications as well.  Complex analysis is one of the most important things a physicist can learn, and I personally have found that this book assists the process very well.