Armchair physicist here - What math book should I read after Mary L Boas?

[tamtam402]

I'm an electrical engineer student, with a big passion for physics. I've started working on Mary L Boas' Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, and I'll have finished the book by the end of the summer (I'm in a coop program so I have a lot of free time in the summer to work on personal projects!).

Since my goal is to work through physics books (Taylor's classical mechanics and Griffith's E&M are the first two books I want to study), I wanted to cover all the maths I'll encounter before getting started. I think understanding physics is hard enough as it is, so if I can focus on the physics without getting stuck every 5 seconds with math issues, this will go much smoother.

Basically, is there an area of mathematics that I should learn in a different book? It was suggested to me that the Differential Equation section in Boas isn't complete enough. Is there any other section of the book that has the same problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jack21222]

You've already covered all the maths you'll need for those books you mentioned. Additionally, those books give you an overview of the mathematics as well. If I were you, I'd just jump right into the Taylor book. If you get stuck on any differential equations there, you can look up that info on a case by case basis.

 

[clope023]

I'm an electrical engineer student, with a big passion for physics. I've started working on Mary L Boas' Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, and I'll have finished the book by the end of the summer (I'm in a coop program so I have a lot of free time in the summer to work on personal projects!).

Since my goal is to work through physics books (Taylor's classical mechanics and Griffith's E&M are the first two books I want to study), I wanted to cover all the maths I'll encounter before getting started. I think understanding physics is hard enough as it is, so if I can focus on the physics without getting stuck every 5 seconds with math issues, this will go much smoother.

Basically, is there an area of mathematics that I should learn in a different book? It was suggested to me that the Differential Equation section in Boas isn't complete enough. Is there any other section of the book that has the same problem?

Thanks in advance!

Multivariable Calculus, Ordinary Differential Equations, Partial Differential Equations, Fourier Analysis, Complex variables are what you need for those books; maybe variational calculus for Taylor.

I have Boas and it's ok but it's too wordy imo, my preferred math methods books are Schaum's Advanced Maths for Engineers and Scientists by Spiegel and Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Kreizig.