Which Undergrad Textbook is Best for Understanding SHM, Wave Motion, and Optics?

AI Thread Summary
For understanding simple harmonic motion (SHM), wave motion, interference, and superposition, several undergraduate textbooks are recommended. Resnick and Halladay are noted for their solid approach, although some users find their problem sets lacking in variety. Serway and Jewett are also mentioned as potential alternatives. For optics, Hecht's book is considered the standard reference, while Crawford's book in the Berkeley series is praised for its clear exposition and practical experiments. Additionally, "Introduction to Wave Phenomena" by Hirose is suggested, though its treatment of Fourier analysis may not meet all expectations. Emphasis is placed on solving problems to reinforce understanding, with a note that while having a large collection of solved problems can be beneficial, relevance to the current coursework is crucial.
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Hi, I was just wondering if someone can suggest an undergrad textbook which will help me understand SHM, Wave motion, interference and superposition, both mathematically and conceptually. I am having a hard time in my first year second semester course which is focused only on the topics listed above. Also how is Serway/Jewett? Is Resnick/Halladay better for the above topics? Any other suggestions are most welcome.
Thank you.

Edit: Book suggestions are welcome for both geometrical optics and physical optics.
 
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Resnick/Halladay is good. Reading concepts wouldn't help, go towards solving as many problems as possible.
 
Of course that's what I want to do. But does Resnick and Halladay have a decent set of problems? I have 3000 Solved problems in physics but some of the questions are not related what I've learned..
 
i like introduction to wave phenomenon by hirose and long for a first course in waves. their treatment of Fourier analysis is meh, but everyone does that differently. optics by hecht is the de facto standard for its namesake.
 
I strongly recommend the book in the Berkeley series by Crawford. It has an excellent exposition of topics, coupled with home-experiments and good problems. As A.P. French put it, the book is a real "Tour de force".
 
The book is fascinating. If your education includes a typical math degree curriculum, with Lebesgue integration, functional analysis, etc, it teaches QFT with only a passing acquaintance of ordinary QM you would get at HS. However, I would read Lenny Susskind's book on QM first. Purchased a copy straight away, but it will not arrive until the end of December; however, Scribd has a PDF I am now studying. The first part introduces distribution theory (and other related concepts), which...
I've gone through the Standard turbulence textbooks such as Pope's Turbulent Flows and Wilcox' Turbulent modelling for CFD which mostly Covers RANS and the closure models. I want to jump more into DNS but most of the work i've been able to come across is too "practical" and not much explanation of the theory behind it. I wonder if there is a book that takes a theoretical approach to Turbulence starting from the full Navier Stokes Equations and developing from there, instead of jumping from...

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