Books/Publication written by famous physicists/mathematicians

[Biloon]

I want to find books or published articles authored by famous physicists or mathematicians. This is not because I'm any fan of them, but from my experience, I gained deep understanding by reading math or physics from the one who actually invented it.

My plan is to rebuild my math/physics basis from ground up, because I think even university textbooks nowadays omitted many important contents.

So basically, my math topics that I want to learned would be, but not only: calculus, diff equation, linear algebra, (maybe even in-depth trigonometry).
While my physics topics would be from classical mechanic to electricity to quantum mechanic

I found an introduction to calculus book by L. Euler, which I believe, the most fruitful calculus textbook I've ever read. It is incomparable with modern calculus textbook.

So if there's something like books or publications from famous physicist or mathematicians.

I think some publications are available online for free (I've found some of Euler's articles online)

 

[mathwonk]

eulers elements of algebra is also the best beginning algebra book. if you read that, solving cubic equations will seems almost as simple to you as solving quadratics.

i.e. a cubic x^3 = fx + g is solved by writing it as f = 3ab, g = a^3+b^3 for some a,b.

Then x = a+b solves the cubic. But knowing f,g means we know both a^3+b^3 = g, and

a^3b^3 = f^3/27. Since e know the sum and prioduct of a^3 and b^3, we can find these cubes by solving a quadratic, namely t^2 - gt + f^3/27 = 0.

Then we get three values of a, by taking cube roots and b = f/3a.

e.g. solve x^3 = 15x + 126. the quadratic is t^2 - 126t + 125 = 0, so we get a^3 = 1, or 15. Then a = any cube root of 1, like a = 1. so b = 5, and x = 1+5 = 6.

try x^3 = 18x + 35.

 

[sammers]

By using the same cubic equation: x^3 = 15x + 126 how would I find a root by making the substitution x = y + 5/y?

 

[Meir Achuz]

Dirac "quantum mechanics" is the source for all other QM books.

 

[Jorriss]

Feynman's casual books six easy and not so easy pieces are pretty insightful.

 

[xristy]

Spivak's Differential Geometry Vol 2 contains a translation of Riemann's "On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry". There is also a translation of this famous paper by Clifford(pdf).

At Particle Physics from the very Beginning there are PDF and Tex versions in English and Russian of many famous papers in particle physics starting with Perrin, Becquerel and Thomson on to Bohr, Chadwick, Dirac, Born and so on.

 

[morphism]

Two books that immediately come to mind are Klein's and Weyl's expository accounts of Riemann surface theory. They're a bit dated in their presentation, and by no means an easy read, but there is much that can be learned from them. The precise references are

F. Klein, "On Riemann's theory of algebraic functions and their integrals: a supplement to the usual treatises", Dover, 2003.

H. Weyl, "The concept of a Riemann surface", Dover, 2009.