A Div, Grad, Curl and all that book for waves?

[hitmeoff]

Hello,

I find that one of my biggest weakness is following along with the math of waves (Wave function, SHO, Schrödinger Equation, etc). Is there a book out there that gives treatment to wave functions and PDE's in the same way that Div, Grad, Curl does for multi var/vector calculus?

I do have A first course in partial diff eqs by Weinberg, but I'm looking for something that maybe starts out slower and something I could realistically cover over the course of a packed summer.

 

[cmos]

I've personally never checked it out myself, but you might want to look at AP French's "Vibrations and Waves."

 

[novop]

French's book is most likely a good choice for you. It really emphasizes the fundamentals before you move on to more complicated problems.

 

[jasonRF]

French's book is probably as good as most other books out there on elementary waves - since you are interested in quanum mechanics you really need a good grounding in classical waves first and French is a good place to start. For basic PDEs, the clearest, simplest book I am aware of is the Dover book by Farlow - I highly recommend it. I also have weinberger and can definitely say that Farlow will be a much nicer introduction, and it is broken up into many short chapters, most of which are easily digestible in an hour or so each. If you are looking for a good intro to quantum physics (that may be too long for your summer reading) I recommend Morrison's "understanding quantum physics."

good luck.

 

[hitmeoff]

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

 

[WiFO215]

I don't quite know if French is what you are looking for. Schey's book is for math. French's is a physics book. It does not explicitly tell you how to solve wave equations. It does not involve Boundary value problems, Fourier Transform, Green's function methods etc. It is not Schey's text's equivalent for waves.

 

[naele]

Schey's book is for math.

This isn't quite accurate, it's more of a math methods book for vector calculus and its physical applications (the 'all that' part). Several problems involve finding electric fields, evaluating moments of inertia, finding mass distributions, determining electric/magnetic fluxes through certain geometries, etc.