Oxford Dictionary of Physics

[paulb203]

TL;DR Summary: Any good?

Oxford Dictionary of Physics 8th Edition

Does anyone here have a copy of this? If so, any thoughts on it?

I got the most recent edition recently (8th) which was published in 2019 so it's fairly up-to-date.

It seems ok to me (a novice) for a quick reference guide. I haven’t come across anything yet that contradicts what I’ve come across online. The contributors have several degrees of various levels between them, although it doesn’t state which subject the degrees are in.

It's also a welcome break from reading from the screen of this or that device.

 

[jedishrfu]

I imagine it's suitable for terminology definitions, but you won't be able to learn physics from it.

 

[fresh_42]

I have something similar for mathematics (Atlas for Mathematics) and I don't remember ever using it. I occasionally looked up things in another book (Small Encyclopedia of Mathematics), but more often when I was at school and less ever since. It is so convenient to find things on the internet nowadays, especially lecture notes for entire classes on university servers around the world(!) that it's easier to read one of them and turn to another one if I do not find the answer or representation that I expected to find.

I also remember a discussion here at PF. Someone suggested writing a book about differential equation systems. A kind of list that contains all of them to look up equations, solutions, and context. As I started thinking about it, Lotka-Volterra, SIR, heat equation, Bernoulli principle, Navier-Stokes, Gauss, Maxwell, Einstein, etc. immediately came to mind. However, the second thought was that such an endeavor wouldn't require a single book, but a lexicon of several volumes instead, each of them rather thick, and the third thought was that such a book would likely have to contain the entirety of physics.

The good news is that such books are a great source to browse through, rummage, become curious, and get an appetite for learning more. Get hungry, but eat at the restaurants!

 

[WWGD]

Is it the paper version or the electronic/online one?

 

[Frabjous]

Get hungry, but eat at the restaurants!

Not advice one generally hears.

 

[paulb203]

Is it the paper version or the electronic/online one?

The paper version.

 

[paulb203]

I have something similar for mathematics (Atlas for Mathematics) and I don't remember ever using it. I occasionally looked up things in another book (Small Encyclopedia of Mathematics), but more often when I was at school and less ever since. It is so convenient to find things on the internet nowadays, especially lecture notes for entire classes on university servers around the world(!) that it's easier to read one of them and turn to another one if I do not find the answer or representation that I expected to find.

I also remember a discussion here at PF. Someone suggested writing a book about differential equation systems. A kind of list that contains all of them to look up equations, solutions, and context. As I started thinking about it, Lotka-Volterra, SIR, heat equation, Bernoulli principle, Navier-Stokes, Gauss, Maxwell, Einstein, etc. immediately came to mind. However, the second thought was that such an endeavor wouldn't require a single book, but a lexicon of several volumes instead, each of them rather thick, and the third thought was that such a book would likely have to contain the entirety of physics.

The good news is that such books are a great source to browse through, rummage, become curious, and get an appetite for learning more. Get hungry, but eat at the restaurants!

Thanks.
Yes, the internet is great, but when I, as a novice, Google something about physics, I can't tell right away if a result is way off the mark or not. If I use the physics dictionary as my first point of reference (assuming it's reliable) I can then judge the online results by that.

 

[fresh_42]

Thanks.
Yes, the internet is great, but when I, as a novice, Google something about physics, I can't tell right away if a result is way off the mark or not. If I use the physics dictionary as my first point of reference (assuming it's reliable) I can then judge the online results by that.

There is a useful little trick. If you use the search key "<subject of interest> + pdf " then you have higher chances of landing on a university server rather than on someone's private page due to the "+ pdf" part. The subject of interest could be e.g. "mechanics", "calculus 1", or even the additional part "Introduction to". Use the names your syllabus uses. Wikipedia is also a possibility for getting an overview.

I also learned that nobody can know all the books. So what is the key to choosing among them? The answer is: learn whom to ask! I.e. find a professor whose style you like and understand and ask him for recommendations. If you e.g. ask here or elsewhere on the internet then you will receive the whole potpourri as answers and you will be as clueless as before. Style is important! I have books that I avoid only because of their strange choice of letters like $\mathfrak{G}\, , \,\mathcal{G}\, , \,\mathscr{G}$ etc. I mean $\mathscr{I}$ and $\mathscr{J}$ are simply too similar. You can find reading probes of most of the books on the internet. Use them before you buy one. I, too, like paper more than screen so I gathered books over time and still prefer to look up things in them rather than on screen. But books are expensive and the wrong choice is lost money. Use the internet as a tool, not as a solution.

 

[jedishrfu]

I concur with @fresh_42 about symbols used. I once took a grad course in theoretical physics where we were discussing the stress and strain tensors and the prof had terrible writing. Finally, I found a book that cleared my confusion.

His chalkboard writing was so bad I was confusing the two greek letters $\zeta$ and $\xi$

 

[WWGD]

I concur with @fresh_42 about symbols used. I once took a grad course in theoretical physics where we were discussing the stress and strain tensors and the prof had terrible writing. Finally, I found a book that cleared my confusion.

His chalkboard writing was so bad I was confusing the two greek letters $\zeta$ and $\xi$

Many profs use u,v and i,j,k on the blackboard. Unless they write calligraphy-like, if you will, these are very hard to tell appart. Poor practice.

 

[fresh_42]

I concur with @fresh_42 about symbols used. I once took a grad course in theoretical physics where we were discussing the stress and strain tensors and the prof had terrible writing. Finally, I found a book that cleared my confusion.

His chalkboard writing was so bad I was confusing the two greek letters $\zeta$ and $\xi$

I had to learn these:

Good that my granny has used them on postcards and recipes and at least a,b,c,d,e,x,y,z were not too hard to distinguish.

 

[fresh_42]

Many profs use u,v and i,j,k on the blackboard. Unless they write calligraphy-like, if you will, these are very hard to tell appart. Poor practice.

I switched to using k not i as a summation index. The i,j,l are indistinguishable as tiny indices and i often occurs additionally as the complex unit. But \mathscr is worst. I cannot read it, I need to decode it.

 

[WWGD]

IIRC, there were schools that used electronic boards that were trained to correct, so that students could get a hold of lecture notes ; as .pdf's , I believe, to take/keep at home. I think UIUC( Urbana-Champaigne). was one of those schools.