Tuesday, February 23, 2010

PH253: Supplemental texts

If you're looking for some additional reading, I can recommend two more supplemental texts (in addition to the Feynman Lectures on Physics I already recommended):

One is the Serway book used in PH105 and PH106. If you know someone with the full double volume (it is in the Rogers library too), the last chapters are very much the same as what we're covering now. (Physics for scientists and engineers with modern physics / Raymond A. Serway, John W. Jewett, Jr.). I would guess that it is pretty easy to find someone that has this book left over from PH106, and there should be multiple copies in the Rogers library since it is a book we've used for a long time.

Another very good book, one I came close to using this semester, is the one by A.P. French (An introduction to quantum physics / A. P. French, Edwin F. Taylor.), which is also in the Rogers library. The mathematical level is at times a bit higher, but the explanations and examples are I think very clear. Some of the problems from your homework come from this book in fact, and I would probably recommend it over the Serway book for understanding the qualitative aspects.

In similar news, I am going to try to tie the homework problems to each Tuesday's lecture a little more closely so I can spend a larger portion of the in-class time on homework problems. This time around, most of the problems relate directly to stuff that I'll go over in Tuesday's (er, today's) class, and I'll try to make that the case most of the time.

(Also, as a reminder: if you click on an event in the course calendar (look to the right side of the page), and ask to "show event details," the relevant sections of the textbook for each lecture are listed.)

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