Saturday, October 02, 2004

An Undergraduate Physics Curriculum

Introductory Physics:
  • Sears and Zemansky's University Physics by Hugh Young. This book is much better than the standard text by Halliday & Resnick. You’ll probably want to pick up the study guide and solution manual to help you navigate through the text.
  • Modern Physics by Llewellyn & Tipler
  • Feynman Lectures On Physics by Feynman. You will never learn the material just from this book, but in conjunction with a more accessible book such as Young, Feynman’s Lectures will yield an insight on every page.
Mathematical and Computational Physics:
Classical Mechanics:
Classical Electromagnetism:
  • Electromagnetic Fields and Waves by Lorrain, Corson & Lorrain. This book contains two fascinating chapters covering the relativistic description of electricity and magnetism as a unified phenomenon that I have not seen in any other undergraduate text.
  • Classical Electrodynamics by Walter Greiner. Not good enough to stand alone but a great supplement to Lorrain, Corson & Lorrain.
Quantum Mechanics:
Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics:
Relativity:
  • A First Course in General Relativity by Bernard Schutz. Special relativity is usually sufficiently covered in Modern Physics classes (and the suggested book by Llewellyn & Tipler does it well), but general relativity seems to be never covered in the undergraduate curriculum. This book is a good introduction for the undergraduate. (Hartle is a good alternative.)

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