trees and plants said:
Hello. When i have some problems i want to solve should i read only the needed literature, topics, things to the problem i am trying to answer?
Good god no! Probably the most important part of any textbook is the preface, where the author tells the reader what the goals of his/her presentation/exposition is going to be, and what his/her approach is going to be. Before I even buy the textbook, I at least skim the preface. This does not mean I will not use the text if I don't like the approach, or topics, but at least I like to know where the exposition is going.
Since Covid, I have been reading general relativity with 5 or 6 textbooks with varying treatments. I have to be selective in which problems I consider, but I am reading:
old treatments (non-geometric): Adler, Bazin, Schiffers
newer non-geometric: Ohanian, Ruffini. and Weinberg
Modern treatments: Carroll, Wald
Modern treatment in a class by itself: Misner Thorne, Wheeler
All these add to the understanding of GR. I know some authors will say in the preface, theirs is the only book needed, but all these present good points.
I also now understand why my profs, never settled on one book in QM, but taught from their own notes, and put several books on reserve. I think in any advanced study, our education should be to expose ourselves to various treatments, and even stretch our thinking in areas that we do not immediately resonate with.
Clearly, just because you can do every problem in Carroll, you may not be able to solve every problem in Weinberg, or Wald, or MTW. I think problems are an important part of learning, but they should not be the end goal by themselves.
No author has ever wrote in the preface, I hope the reader will selectively scan the textbook after reading the problems and ignore what I have written if I cannot use it on any of the problems in this textbook. Any author is going to tell you, every word on every topic is important to either the current chapter or later chapters, (otherwise, why would it be included at all). Moreover, suppose you can solve all the problems in the current chapter with the limited material you read. What about the later chapters, where reference is made to notes that the author could not develop into a problem until later material is digested.
In addition, many readers in this forum have read Feynman's lectures, Sommerfield's lectures or Dirac's QM, not for the power of what they add to problem solving, but for the deep appreciation that shows up in the material.
