Best Book for Physics? Name Recommendations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aditya Vishwak
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Book Physics
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
4 replies · 6K views
Aditya Vishwak
Messages
28
Reaction score
0
Can anyone name me a good book to learn physics? Please...
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Aditya Vishwak said:
Can anyone name me a good book to learn physics? Please...
That's quite a broad request. You'll have to give folks an idea of your level and goal if you expect a useful recommendation.
 
Want a book for relativity?
 
Introductory physics - pls look up Douglas Giancoli - very nice intro with lots of pics etc
 
I believe it's classical physics, you are interested in.
MY humble suggestion is this

To start
(get this is you can afford only one book):

French - "Newtonian Mechanics"
(it's not only about mech, it's about physics and how to study it)

To move on:

Mechanics

Kleppener Kolenkov, "Introduction to Mechanics"
French, "Vibrations and Waves"

EM
Kip, "Fundamentals of Electricity and Magnetism"
Purcell, "Electricity and Magnetism"

Thermal
Callen, "Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics"

Basic statistics for error analysis
Taylor, "An Introduction to Error Analysis: The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurements"

All-in-ones

*insightful* --> Feynman, "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" (they are online for free!)
*quick reference* --> Ohanian, "Physics" 2 edition expanded (newer editions look worse in my eyes)


Oops, I see now you posted "want a book about relativity?" (it would be nice if OPs had some sort of colored background to make it clear when they re-enter the thread... I tend to overlook the names...)

So,

Relativity (special)
Taylor, Wheeler, "Spacetime Physics" (to begin with)
I have not found one single textbook that satisfies me, but let's say that
French, "Special Relativity", albeit a bit old and still using relativistic mass to some extent is a nice entry point for a beginner
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: 1 person