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Winzer
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I am very interested in self study from these texts, the 10 volume set. I am a third year physics student.
How approachable are these texts?
How approachable are these texts?
xepma said:I haven't read all of the books (far from it), but the one I can really, really recommend is volume 1, Mechanics. It's an absolute gem and should be accessible for a third year student.
Thanks. I have found the first volume to be very readable so far. I assumed the others would be just as readable but I guess not. I have read a couple pages of the statistical mechanics part 1 and haven't found it too bad. There are a lot of math steps skipped though.xepma said:First of all, the texts are graduate texts indeed. So if you haven't had any previous exposure to a topic treated in a volume I wouldn't really recommend it. The point is that a lot of the math is not explained, so if you don't understand the math you will not learn it from these books.
Second, the books are indeed good. I, personnally, came along a lot of (technical) subtleties that are usually skipped over in other books, but are treated in 2-3 sentences. Having said that, keep in mind that the books are fairly old so some stuff is indeed missing that can be found in any standard modern texts (e.g. the book on Q.E.D. is all about a quantum gauge theory, but a lot of the results are not applicable to non-Abelian gauge theories at all).
I haven't read all of the books (far from it), but the one I can really, really recommend is volume 1, Mechanics. It's an absolute gem and should be accessible for a third year student.
George Jones said:I very much a agree. As a third-year student in a two-semester course that covered all of Goldstein, I made extensive use of the Mechanics volume. A "gem" indeed.
Goldstein covers better adiabatic invariants, canonic transformations, maybe some other topics.Winzer said:My Prof says that Vol. I is "too easy" and that I should be looking at Goldstein. He refers to that book as the "Mechanics Bible." Is that book really worth it for mechanics?
Are these covered in Landau?Bob_for_short said:Goldstein covers better adiabatic invariants, canonic transformations, maybe some other topics.
Thanks dx, I'll keep it in mind. Is Arnold accessible to my level?dx said:I think both Goldstein and Landau are out of date for the more advanced topics such as canonical transformations etc. The treatments are clumsy and sometimes even wrong; it is better to use more modern textbooks like Arnold for these.
What material is in Landau that I couldn't find elsewhere?Landau said:I disagree that the books are graduate level per se. Of course it depends on the person and on the country/university, but the first three volumes (which I know) should all be readable by a third-year (undergraduate) student. We used The Classical Theory of Fields in a third year course called Classical Field Theory, and I liked it very much.
The only cons in my opinion are the typesetting, the non-rigorousness of some of the used math, and sometimes a bit old-fashioned view. But they contain a LOT of fantastic material, which you'll hardly find anywhere else.
Winzer said:I am curious. Did you cover Goldstein in order? How many chapters did you cover in the first semester?
dx said:I think both Goldstein and Landau are out of date for the more advanced topics such as canonical transformations etc. The treatments are clumsy and sometimes even wrong; it is better to use more modern textbooks like Arnold for these.
The main purpose of Landau Lifshitz texts is to provide a self-study guide for third year physics students. These texts cover advanced topics in theoretical physics and are meant to supplement a student's coursework.
The authors of Landau Lifshitz texts are Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz. They were both renowned Soviet physicists who made significant contributions to the fields of theoretical and condensed matter physics.
No, these texts are not suitable for beginners in physics. They are intended for third year physics students who already have a strong foundation in classical mechanics, electrodynamics, and quantum mechanics.
Landau Lifshitz texts cover a wide range of topics in theoretical physics, including classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, statistical physics, solid state physics, and fluid dynamics.
Landau Lifshitz texts are known for their concise and rigorous approach to theoretical physics. They are also known for their use of advanced mathematical techniques, such as tensor analysis, which make them popular among graduate students and researchers in physics.