How Can I Bridge the Gap Between Landau and Griffiths in Electrodynamics?

[WiFO215]

Since I'm reading SR/GR now, I thought I'd complement it with a treatment of EM also. I am looking for a treatment of electrodynamics at the level of Landau, i.e. I want the covariant formulation and the Lagrangian formulation of the fields. My background is the level of Griffiths. Landau seems to me a nice book, but it is too terse to learn from. Books both on the math side and physics side welcome.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Jackson's and Morse and Feshbach, but they might be tersier... :-)

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

P.S

It's better to read concurrently with a course, otherwise you'll get stuck a lot of times with no help.

 

[Daverz]

Electrodynamics and Classical Theory of Fields and Particles by A. O. Barut

I guess I should warn you that Barut is terse as well.

Classical Field Theory by Davison E. Soper

Both are Dover paperbacks.

Also, Electrodynamics by Fulvio Melia looks interesting.

 

[Landau]

Landau's book is great (my username actually originated from the time I was studying this book), but indeed not ideal to learn from, at least not as a single source. I strongly recommend http://www.plasma.uu.se/CED/Book/ freely available book.

 

[ansgar]

Landau's book is great (my username actually originated from the time I was studying this book), but indeed not ideal to learn from, at least not as a single source. I strongly recommend http://www.plasma.uu.se/CED/Book/ freely available book.

Have you studied at Uppsala?

 

[Landau]

No. Both books were recommended in a Classical Field Theory course I did last year, a course for third year students (university in The Netherlands).

 

[WiFO215]

Thanks all. I shall look up your suggestions. Someone needs to write a non-terse EM book if the only available texts are Jackson, Landau and Schwinger. All seem to be very terse.

 

[matonski]

Leonard Susskind has a good set of video lectures out on Classical Field Theory. Here is a link to them. They are also available on iTunes. Even though they are called Special Relativity, only the first lecture is really on SR. The rest is on Field Theory. http://web.mac.com/clinton_lewis/Special_Relativity/Lecture_1.html are the notes from those lectures. Be sure to check out "Clinton's notes" on those pages as well.

Oh yeah, I like to watch them sped up a little because he talks a little too slow for my taste. Sped up by 1.5 (VLC does this), it's perfect.

 

[WiFO215]

Good grief! Barut is "worse" than Landau. The thing I didn't like about Landau is his treatment of the math. It is very slipshod. It is also not a book to learn things from, but something to read when you have a good foundation. Barut on the other hand delves into group theory, tensors and spinors. I think I'd like to avoid that extreme of math for the present.

I've been reading Thide's book and it has been good so far. I skimmed through the book and it includes the Lagrangian formulation and the covariant formulation of the fields. Seems okay. Will let you know after I read some more.

 

[WiFO215]

Hey guys. Bo Thide is pretty good. I like it. I suppose I shall continue using it, but if you guys have any other suggestions/ books, please feel free to add.

 

[Landau]

Glad to hear you also find Bo Thidé helpful. Another suggestion, altough I don't know the book very well, is https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471595519/?tag=pfamazon01-20. Also, there is https://www.amazon.com/dp/0387406158/?tag=pfamazon01-20 book, but it is quite advanced (manifolds, exterior product, lie derivative, hodge duality, etc.).

 

[WiFO215]

Thanks Landau! I'll look into both of them.

 

[WiFO215]

Thirring's book is far too detailed mathematically for this point of time. Low on the other hand is good as far as I've read it till now. I think I'll use it to supplement Bo Thide's.

 

[WiFO215]

Hey guys,
I'd like to recommend Low's book to anyone who wants to read up on Classical Field Theory. It would be useful to supplement it with some other book like Schwinger, or use it as a supplement. It has a very good treatment of the topic.