Classical Waves books -- Looking for better textbooks to augment my class materials

[struggling_student]

Are there any good textbooks about waves? Like Pain or French except written competently, devoid of mistakes and logical even axiomatic. Ambitious with strong math. Can be old. We were recommended to read Pain but that book is a joke and French is just a simplified version thereof. Problems are impossible to solve because they make no sense until you make arbitrary assumptions.

Example: Pain claims that connecting a charged capacitor to an inductor will generate a simple harmonic motion. I attempted that and it obviously did not succeed. The example was useless. This is the sort of thing I want to avoid.

I know I could just simply goole this question and plenty of lists of recommendations would pop out. I am creating a new thread because people who write these lists often think that Pain is excellent and the best there is. Which anyone with half a brain knows is a waste of paper it's printed on.

Sorry for being a little snappy but I am interested in opinions of people who feel the same way.

 

[onatirec]

Example: Pain claims that connecting a charged capacitor to an inductor will generate a simple harmonic motion. I attempted that and it obviously did not succeed. The example was useless.

I don't have any experience with French or Pain, but I'm left a bit confused by your characterization here... This is a very elementary example of a harmonic oscillator which can be found in many places - the electrical analog of a simple spring/mass system. What do you mean it obviously didn't succeed and was useless...?

 

[Frabjous]

There’s the short introductory book Waves by Coulson
The advanced book I liked was Linear and Non-Linear Waves by Whitham.
There are specialized books on shock waves, fluid waves, water waves, stress waves, acoustics, em waves, optics, etc.

French also has an annotated bibliography you should check out.

 

[Dr Transport]

http://www.physics.usu.edu/riffe/3750/index.htm

 

[berkeman]

Example: Pain claims that connecting a charged capacitor to an inductor will generate a simple harmonic motion. I attempted that and it obviously did not succeed. The example was useless.

I agree with @onatirec on this -- could you post your work on the question that shows it is a useless example of a simple oscillation? Unless you have objections about the components not being real (with loss), I'm not seeing your objection yet until I can see your work. Thanks.

 

[struggling_student]

Let me ask you: connect a charged capacitor to an inductor, what will happen?

 

[ergospherical]

From KVL you have simply $L \dot{I} + \dfrac{Q}{C} = 0 \implies \ddot{I} +\dfrac{1}{LC}I = 0$ i.e. simple harmonic oscillations at $\omega = 1/\sqrt{LC}$

 

[struggling_student]

Do you don't. Sloppy textboks make that claim but in reality everything is dissipated instantly and no oscillations are observed. I charged a 470 uF capacitor to 8 volts and connected to a 33 uH capacitor and watched with an oscilloscope. Nothing happened.

 

[berkeman]

Do you don't. Sloppy textboks make that claim but in reality everything is dissipated instantly and no oscillations are observed. I charged a 470 uF capacitor to 8 volts and connected to a 33 uH capacitor and watched with an oscilloscope. Nothing happened.

(I have no idea what you are trying to say...)

Don't connect a capacitor to a capacitor -- that is a very different situation and a bit more advanced than you might think.

The problem you stated was a charged capacitor connected to an inductor. No magic in that problem. Want to try again? Try reading the helpful post from @ergospherical ...

 

[ergospherical]

You may also account for resistive losses,\begin{align*}
L\dot{I} + RI + \dfrac{Q}{C} = 0 \implies \ddot{I} + \dfrac{R}{L} \dot{I} + \dfrac{1}{LC} I = 0
\end{align*}This gives damped oscillations with parameters $\gamma = \dfrac{R}{2L}$ and $\omega_0 = \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{LC}}$ by comparison to the standard form $f'' + 2\gamma f' + \omega_0^2 f = 0$. The solution depends on the level of damping $\xi \sim \gamma / \omega_0$ (there are 3 possible regimes, $\xi < 1, \xi = 1, \xi > 1$).

 

[berkeman]

Sigh. Thread closed. There was a backstory with the OP.