Textbook for learning PDE's applied to physics?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around recommendations for textbooks that effectively teach partial differential equations (PDEs) as applied to physics. Participants express their experiences with specific texts and their effectiveness in covering methods such as Green's Functions and Fourier series.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses dissatisfaction with the textbook Goldbart and Stone, noting it does not adequately explain the Green's Function method or provide sufficient problem-solving practice for PDEs.
  • Another participant suggests textbooks by Haberman and Pinsky as potential alternatives, providing links to their Amazon listings.
  • A third participant recommends Lokenath Debnath's books on linear and nonlinear PDEs, mentioning their high cost but also their value.
  • A light-hearted comment is made about trusting books on Green's functions based on their cover color, followed by a recommendation for Duffy's book.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on a single recommended textbook, with multiple competing suggestions and varying opinions on the effectiveness of different texts.

Contextual Notes

Some participants highlight specific areas of difficulty, such as the application of boundary conditions and the clarity of explanations in the recommended texts, but these concerns remain unresolved.

Who May Find This Useful

Students and educators looking for resources to learn or teach PDEs in the context of physics, particularly those seeking alternatives to commonly used textbooks.

Vannay
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Took a graduate level mathematical methods for physics course and came out the other side feeling a bit lacking in solving stuff like the heat equation, wave equation, laplaces equation and so on. I'm still unsure of the Green's Function method for them, how to look at them with Fourier series, and so on.

The textbook we used was Goldbart and Stone which often would introduce the Green Function method for a given PDE by saying "So here's the solution" and then showing it is. That doesn't help when I'm taking a test that says solve this diffusion PDE given these certain boundary conditions.
 
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