Electrostatics/dynamics and E&M, where's a good place to start?

[Hamiltonian]

so I recently finished the basics of classical mechanics and decided to start with electrostatics/dynamics, I started with Griffiths but found pretty challenging should I just persist and continue with it or maybe go through the Feynman lectures(vol2) or electricity and magnetism by Purcell and Morin to make my journey in learning the subject slightly smoother?

also, is Griffiths considered to be level 0 or is there something at a lower level than it?

 

[etotheipi]

Which sections of Griffiths in particular did you find inaccessible? That might make it easier to suggest alternatives for those parts.

 

[Hamiltonian]

Which sections of Griffiths in particular did you find inaccessible? That might make it easier to suggest alternatives for those parts.

I finished the first chapter on the basics of multivariable calc but from the second chapter onwards I started facing difficulty...
also maybe since I am not taking any classes on the subject I am finding the book challenging? I am not too sure tho.

 

[etotheipi]

If it were me, I'd try and stick with it. But it's hard to give advice just on this information. You say it's chapter 2 that's giving you difficulty, that's electrostatics. Are you struggling with the concepts, or with the problems? Since you got through chapter 1, you're familiar with the required vector calculus but maybe you're having trouble applying that to the physical scenarios?

I think Griffiths is one of the more accessible texts (but mind you, out of those the only other one I've used is Purcell...). I wouldn't use Feynman II for a first exposure, instead read that when you're comfortable with Griffiths.

But let's wait for someone else to comment

 

[vanhees71]

I think Griffiths is a pretty good book (the E&M book only!). I'd not recommend Purcell (the Berkeley physics book), because it complicates things by trying to be too pedagogical. The Feynman lectures are of course another great option, but I think more challenging than Griffiths.

Usually the greatest obstacle to learn electrodynamics is that you need to be quite familiar with vector calculus, i.e., grad, div, curl of scalar/vector fields, line, surface, volume integrals and the Gauß's and Stokes's as well as Helmholtz's decomposition theorems. I think Griffiths also gives a good review on these mathematical prerequisites.

 

[mpresic3]

Most physicists I know started with volume 2 of Resnick and Halliday. Their treatment is good and at a lower requirement than Griffith. It is still pretty sophisticated. You still need to be conversant with double integrals, and some higher level math. The jump from Resnick and Halliday to upper-level EM is very steep.

I have Griffith, but I never liked it. I prefer Reitz/ Millford or Corson/Lorraine, or Wangsness, or Marion/Heald,
classical electromagnetic radiation, although the last is for a second undergraduate semester.

My school went from Resnick and Halliday to Panofsky and Phillips. Boy that was awful. We students actually were reading Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, straight from Resnick and Halliday, because the jump in the learning curve was actually gentler, that way. I will never forget that experience.

 

[jtbell]

is Griffiths considered to be level 0

What is "level 0"? That suggests "kindergarten" to me, but surely you don't mean this.

In the US, an E&M course that uses Griffiths almost always requires as a prerequisite, an introductory physics course that uses e.g. Halliday/Resnick/Walker or Young/Freedman; and a full sequence of calculus courses including vector calculus. (I've never heard of a university that doesn't do this, but I suppose it's remotely possible, which is why I wrote "almost.")

 

[vanhees71]

Well, in my university we start with the theory course in the 1st semester, and electrodynamics is taught in the 3rd semester (Theo 1 is about mathematical methods and some mechanics, including SRT, Theo 2 is analytical mechanics). In the experimental course you have Mechanics and Thermodynamics (Exp. 1) and electrodynamics (Exp. 2) before. I'm not sure about the math course, but I guess that there also some calculus of many independent variables has been taught in the 2nd semester. So theoretical E&M in the 3rd semester seems to work out ok for most students though it's known to be one of the toughest lectures in the entire undergrad curriculum (only followed by Theo 5, statistical mechanics).

My own experience about 25 years ago is similar: We started with theoretical physics in the 3rd semester and E&M was Theo 2 (i.e., in the 4th semester), and it was also the most challenging of all theory lectures in the undergrad. curriculum.

I've always thought since this experience that E&M is taught to early, because you need pretty much all of the vector calculus (even with some glance at tensor calculus, when it comes to the Maxwell stress tensor) machinery, which is a lot of mathematical material to deal with, often for the first time, in parallel with the physics of E&M itself. I think, it would be better to flip the order of subjects in the theory course and teach QM 1 before E&M, because for most of the time in QM 1 you deal with a scalar field (the "wave function") and you basically only need gradients and Laplacians, and you learn the most important techniques for the solution of a partial differential equation (Schrödinger equation) with one scalar field only but you also collect in a natural way also the special functions (another topic, which I found pretty challenging when heard about them at the first time) like spherical harmonics, Bessel functions, spherical Bessel function, Hermite and Laguerre polynoms and "generalized" Fourier series and integrals. This is all stuff you can well use in the E&M lecture.

Of course you can argue also to the opposite: In E&M you deal with a classical theory and the physics concepts are thus much closer to everyday experience than in QM. So you can argue that the traditional order of subjects is better, because you learn all the math needed in QM already in the E&M lecture...

 

[atyy]

Avoid Purcell, it's indigestible. Read the electromagnetism sections of a first year physics text like Halliday and Resnick or Young and Freedman. As a companion to Griffiths, I recommend David Dugdale's Essentials of Electromagnetism.

 

[Hamiltonian]

I have decided to continue with Griffiths and David Dugdale's Essentials of electromagnetism.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[vela]

I'd suggest getting an older edition of a good intro physics textbook, like Young and Freedman, for reference. They're good for learning or reviewing basic concepts without getting bogged down in the mathematics. Having those basics down makes learning from Griffiths a lot easier.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

Are you doing as many problems as you can?

Each of the problems in the chapter (as opposed to the end of the chapter) are supposed to be Segways to the next session.

If you do the problems I promise you things will flow nicer.

Griffiths is a wonderful book in my opinion.