Finding Monographs in Physics to Resources

[dEdt]

I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this question, but I couldn't find a more suitable one. My textbook has the following passage:
"Most students spend too much time studying textbooks. They should begin to familiarize themselves with the wider scientific literature as soon as possible. The sooner a student penetrates the specialist literature on topics that interest him, the more rapidly he will approach the research frontier. He should not be afraid to tackle advanced monographs, for he will find that they often contain more lucid treatments of the basics than introductory texts, and the difficult parts will alert him to specifics in his background that need to be filled in. Rather than read aimlessly in a broad field, he should focus on specific topics, search out the relevant literature, and determine what is required to master them. Above all, he should learn to see the scientific literature as a vast lode of exciting ideas which he can mine at will by himself."

First, do you agree with the author? And secondly, if I was interested in finding monographs on a particular topic, where could I look?

 

[Lavabug]

Well, I picked up an astrophysics paper once and spotted the continuity equation, that made me happy for a little bit. That's all I recall of it though. :P

 

[Ryker]

I mostly disagree, although it's impossible to give a general answer to that. I think textbooks are great for building fundamental knowledge, which serves as the background that alleviates picking up new stuff when you finally do delve into scientific papers and other more specialized literature. I think gathering knowledge the latter way is much harder and also takes a longer time if you're someone new to the field. For example, I took a few courses on economics (which I know isn't physics, but I think here you can apply the analogy), and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gathered the understanding I have now just from reading the Financial Times, papers etc. and looking stuff I don't know up. Even if I did, it would take me much longer, so I think textbooks are more than necessary at the beginning, and become less and less so later on, but only because on the way you're gaining that broad knowledge needed to tackle more specialized literature.

Do note that perhaps this only applies to some people, and others may find a different approach better. However, I'd be surprised if that was the case, since usually people have way more trouble threading bits together into one coherent piece when they've gleaned them from too broad a spectrum of sources.

 

[Sybren]

I can not speak for others, but I think the author has two separate points here.
First of all: there are many resources available outside of the textbook the university wants you to use, some of which can be more helpful than your textbook.
Secondly, the point I think the author tries to make here, is: going into a physics career, what physics students are trained for, it is required to publish your research, and so you will need to know about recent publications, which means reading/scanning through many articles. This requires a reading style that is so different from reading textbooks, that it is good to practice with it as soon as possible.

I agree with both of these points, but also think that it may be demanding a bit much from students..

 

[Studiot]

Monographs?

Well whilst Oxbridge publish mostly full blooded works at all levels several UK universities and publishers run series of monographs which cover physical and mathematical (and other) sciences that can, and sometimes are, called monographs.

University of Sussex
Manchester University
Oliver & Boyd
Chapman & Hall
Methuen

All have some really good ones and some real classics such as Waves by Coulson or Easticity, Fracture and Flow by Jaeger.

go well