Planning my books for my first year in physics

[Fibo112]

Hello. Based on very good reviews on this site I have chosen the books Kleppner Kolenkow Mechanics and Purcell Electricity and Magnetism to study the physics coursework for my first year in university.

So here's my question: Does Kleppner Kolenkow cover all the prerequisites I am going to need for Purcell? The reason I ask is that I noticed that my course in Electricity and Magnetism begins with an introduction to waves, which doesn't seem to be present in K/K or Purcell.

 

[The Bill]

Hello. Based on very good reviews on this site I have chosen the books Kleppner Kolenkow Mechanics and Purcell Electricity and Magnetism to study the physics coursework for my first year in university.

So here's my question: Does Kleppner Kolenkow cover all the prerequisites I am going to need for Purcell? The reason I ask is that I noticed that my course in Electricity and Magnetism begins with an introduction to waves, which doesn't seem to be present in K/K or Purcell.

Shankar's Fundamentals of Physics I covers way you should need to know about waves. The lectures for those chapters(and the rest of the two books) are free to watch:

http://oyc.yale.edu/physics/phys-200#sessions

 

[SredniVashtar]

Do yourself a favor and get a copy of A. P. French's "Vibrations and Waves".
Purcell does not cover waves because in the Berkeley Physics Course they were covered in the third volume: "Waves" by Crawford. (Another interesting and enlightening textbook, but I would not suggest it to be used as a first introduction to waves).

 

[vanhees71]

Abstain from Purcell. We have so many discussions on the confusions caused by this book that I have the impression it's doing more harm than good. There's another book with a similar approach to E&M which is much better, namely the one by Schwartz (he's also a Nobel Laureate, if this is the incomprehensible reason for the many fans of this book to like it).

 

[Whitehole]

Abstain from Purcell. We have so many discussions on the confusions caused by this book that I have the impression it's doing more harm than good. There's another book with a similar approach to E&M which is much better, namely the one by Schwartz (he's also a Nobel Laureate, if this is the incomprehensible reason for the many fans of this book to like it).

Maybe it's the 2nd edition you're talking about? Morin co-authored Purcell's book in the 3rd edition and it's hard to imagine that it would cause some confusion since his mechanics text is superb and clear, however I wouldn't know since I've never used Purcell.

 

[Fibo112]

Thanks for the answers. Yeah the book I am referring to is the third edition.

 

[Fibo112]

Based on some quick research schwartzes book seems like it is even more advanced than purcell, which a lot of people seem to think is already quite rigorous for a first E&M course.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

You can also supplement KK and Purcell with Alonso: Fundamental University Physics.

 

[vanhees71]

Maybe it's the 2nd edition you're talking about? Morin co-authored Purcell's book in the 3rd edition and it's hard to imagine that it would cause some confusion since his mechanics text is superb and clear, however I wouldn't know since I've never used Purcell.

What I'm referring to is the observation that in this forum, whenever somebody is referring to Purcell, there is great confusion concerning the way he treats relativity. I'm very sure that it's not scientifically wrong, but in his attempt to make things pedagogical, which seems to mean for him to use a minimum of mathematics, he makes things less clear than he could by first providing the mathematical background (i.e., in this case 4D vector/tensor calculus in Minkowski space) and then applying it in a straight-forward way to the physics. This is, how it's done in, e.g. Landau&Lifshitz vol. 2, which has a great treatment of classical Electromagnetics using the relativistic approach right away. The book by Schwartz, in my opinion, is of the same level of sophistication as Purcell's, but it's less "pedagogically deformed" ;-).

 

[Whitehole]

What I'm referring to is the observation that in this forum, whenever somebody is referring to Purcell, there is great confusion concerning the way he treats relativity. I'm very sure that it's not scientifically wrong, but in his attempt to make things pedagogical, which seems to mean for him to use a minimum of mathematics, he makes things less clear than he could by first providing the mathematical background (i.e., in this case 4D vector/tensor calculus in Minkowski space) and then applying it in a straight-forward way to the physics. This is, how it's done in, e.g. Landau&Lifshitz vol. 2, which has a great treatment of classical Electromagnetics using the relativistic approach right away. The book by Schwartz, in my opinion, is of the same level of sophistication as Purcell's, but it's less "pedagogically deformed" ;-).

Classical Electromagnetism by Ohanian also emphasizes the relativistic approach, which seems to be better than Purcell in terms of the issue you're talking about. He also teaches tensors right away in the first chapter which makes everything much easier and less "pedagogically deformed".

 

[inthenickoftime]

Abstain from Purcell. We have so many discussions on the confusions caused by this book that I have the impression it's doing more harm than good. There's another book with a similar approach to E&M which is much better, namely the one by Schwartz (he's also a Nobel Laureate, if this is the incomprehensible reason for the many fans of this book to like it).

What's then a good intermediate between Kleppner & Kolenkow, and Schwartz in terms of waves? What are the prerequisites to Schwartz?

 

[jasonRF]

Hello. Based on very good reviews on this site I have chosen the books Kleppner Kolenkow Mechanics and Purcell Electricity and Magnetism to study the physics coursework for my first year in university.

So here's my question: Does Kleppner Kolenkow cover all the prerequisites I am going to need for Purcell? The reason I ask is that I noticed that my course in Electricity and Magnetism begins with an introduction to waves, which doesn't seem to be present in K/K or Purcell.

Just to be clear, Purcell does not assume you know anything about waves. As long at you know mechanics, special relativity and multivariable calculus you have the prereqs.

My first exposure to EM was in a class that was taught out of Purcell (2nd edition) and it was a hard road. I would recommend learning the basics out of a more standard intro text before tackling Purcell. The students in my class with that prior knowledge of EM had a much easier time than those of us that came in cold. Don’t underestimate the problems - some are very challenging for your first time through the material. Working through a bunch of the problems for our weekly homework took many hours.

Jason

 

[vanhees71]

Purcell (Berkeley physics course on Electrodynamics) is not very good. For an intro it's too advanced in trying to do a kind of "pedagogical" "relativity-first" approach, but in the attempt to avoid the adequate mathematical framework, i.e., Minkowski-space vector/tensor calculus it's more confusing than helpful.

I'd also recommend a standard textbook first, e.g., Griffiths. For the relativistic approach then I'd recommend Landau&Lifshitz volume 2, which is in any way the best classical-field-theory textbook, including a straight-forward approach to General Relativity (including the needed and adequate math).

 

[inthenickoftime]

Purcell (Berkeley physics course on Electrodynamics) is not very good. For an intro it's too advanced in trying to do a kind of "pedagogical" "relativity-first" approach, but in the attempt to avoid the adequate mathematical framework, i.e., Minkowski-space vector/tensor calculus it's more confusing than helpful.

I'd also recommend a standard textbook first, e.g., Griffiths. For the relativistic approach then I'd recommend Landau&Lifshitz volume 2, which is in any way the best classical-field-theory textbook, including a straight-forward approach to General Relativity (including the needed and adequate math).

Does it make more sense then to tackle fluid mechanics first? It was within that context that vector calculus was developed. Electrostatics weren't even known at the time and correct me if I'm wrong but knowledge of how fluids behave builds up intuition for electromagnetism as electricity can be viewed as a continuous fluid. Is there a reason why fluid mechanics was dropped from the curriculum? It seems nowadays the recipe is Newtonian mechanics -> electromagnetism instead of Newton -> fluids -> EM. Wouldn't students benefit from the latter approach better? Is there even a "Griffiths" or "Purcell" of Fluids? I looked at my local university's curriculum for physics and "Hydrodynamics" is the only course that deals with the subject and it's optional..

 

[vanhees71]

I'd stick to the usual order, i.e., learn electrodynamics first, because there you deal with a linear theory, the Maxwell equations, and you get used to vector calculus and methods of solutions of partial differential equations for a somewhat simpler case first.

 

[inthenickoftime]

I'd stick to the usual order, i.e., learn electrodynamics first, because there you deal with a linear theory, the Maxwell equations, and you get used to vector calculus and methods of solutions of partial differential equations for a somewhat simpler case first.

One last question. Since there are at least two approaches to EM (relativity first like you say or building up from electro and magnetostatics), what am I going to miss by going with relativity first? Surely the "pedagogical" approach has some merits other than not requiring sophisticated math?