List of STEM Masterworks in Physics, Mechanics, Electrodynamics...

[andresB]

Not sure if anyone mentionen it already, but
https://www.amazon.es/dp/1482216981/

 

[bhobba]

Here are my favorite books on Probability Theory:

To me Feller has and always will be THE reference. But I wouldn't study it until after Ross including his other book you didn't mention - Probability Models.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Master Om]

By STEM I mean science, technology, engineering and math. By a bible, I mean a book which is comprehensive, big and heavy (both physically and intellectually), authoritative, and generally highly respected in the community as the standard book that contains more-or-less everything one needs to know about the subject.

The examples in physics are:

- general physics:
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (3 volumes)

- classical mechanics:
H. Goldstein et al, Classical Mechanics

- classical electromagnetism:
J.D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics

- general relativity:
C.W Misner, K.S. Thorne and J.A. Wheeler, Gravitation

- quantum mechanics:
Surprisingly, I don't know which of the standard QM textbooks would deserve this title.

- quantum information and computation:
M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information

- quantum field theory:
the old testament: S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields Volume I
the new testament: S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields Volume II
(There is also the Volume III on supersymmetry, but it does not have such a high reputation.)

What are your examples?

In QM there are many books. But the one I like most is
Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications
by Nourdine Zettili.

 

[WWGD]

If I may make a more radical comment: What, if any STEM books are worth buying given that most or all the content is available online for free? Are STEM books, if not the whole current education system ananachronisms on their way out, gasping their last breaths?

 

[ZapperZ]

If I may make a more radical comment: What, if any STEM books are worth buying given that most or all the content is available online for free? Are STEM books, if not the whole current education system ananachronisms on their way out, gasping their last breaths?

Show me where a similar content to Boas's "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" is available for free? Show me where a similar content to Mattuck's "A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in Many-Body Problem" is available free. Show me where a smilar content to Mahan's "Many-Particle Physics" is available for free.

Unless you are espousing pirated copies of such books, I don't see any other similar content that is available for free. And don't start with me on Wikipedia.

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

Show me where a similar content to Boas's "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" is available for free? Show me where a similar content to Mattuck's "A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in Many-Body Problem" is available free. Show me where a smilar content to Mahan's "Many-Particle Physics" is available for free.

Unless you are espousing pirated copies of such books, I don't see any other similar content that is available for free. And don't start with me on Wikipedia.

Zz.

Not in a single source, but spread throughout. Maybe the worth of a book is having a coherent presentation by one author but most of the material can be found from different sources.

 

[ZapperZ]

Not in a single source, but spread throughout. Maybe the worth of a book is having a coherent presentation by one author but most of the material can be found from different sources.

BINGO!

A "text" isn't just a collection of information. A good text has not only content, but careful and thoughtful PRESENTATION.

We all have complaints where a teacher not know how to teach, or a college professor rambles on and on without much skill in teaching. None of these are due to faulty knowledge, but rather the lack of pedagogical skills in the presenter. This is what a good textbook has and a collection of information does not!

In my teaching, I spend the MAJORITY of the time thinking on HOW I'm going to present the material, and then try to do that in a way that the students at that level can understand. An author of a book has a similar responsibility because they often are aware of the target audience. Open any General Physics textbook, and inevitably, you'll find something that has no physics content, but instead, discuss problem-solving skills for that particular topic. See, for example, the many different "Problem-Solving tactics" boxes in Randall Knight's textbooks.

A textbook isn't just a collection of information.

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

Well, as long as I am made a prophet on the STEM bible, or at least in the Pastry bible, I am OK with that :).

 

[ZapperZ]

Well, as long as I am made a prophet on the STEM bible, or at least in the Pastry bible, I am OK with that :).

That is an anachronism on its last breaths.

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

I think you're not taking into account the high speed at which knowledge, information changes nowadays. Other than a core at an intro level, say undergrad, can you provide a coherent presentation that will be of value 5 or 10 years down the road? Edit: Would you buy a book that old on, say, networking, quantum chemistry/physics, etc?

 

[ZapperZ]

I think you're not taking into account the high speed at which knowledge, information changes nowadays. Other than a core at an intro level, say undergrad, can you provide a coherent presentation that will be of value 5 or 10 years down the road?

Yup, because I also design online presentations and interactive virtual activities.

So it is odd that you are trying to ask me to show "evidence" or provide proofs of things. You never provided any evidence for what I asked for in my original question to you. It seems that this is simply a one-way thing : you throw stuff out, and we have to debunk it.

At what point do you show evidence to support any of your claim? Or is this your normal operation?

Zz.

 

[marcusl]

How about the “bible” by Whittaker and Watson, most recent edition published in 1927 and still relevant today?

 

[WWGD]

Yup, because I also design online presentations and interactive virtual activities.

So it is odd that you are trying to ask me to show "evidence" or provide proofs of things. You never provided any evidence for what I asked for in my original question to you. It seems that this is simply a one-way thing : you throw stuff out, and we have to debunk it.

At what point do you show evidence to support any of your claim? Or is this your normal operation?

Zz.

What specific claim are you referring to? Brick-and mortar schools dying out? All sorts of alternatives emerging? Information becoming outdated by the time a book is published? Do you really need me to provide evidence for that? Edit: And it is not just education. Everything is changing at acrate faster than we , our institutions, can cope with in a reasonable way. Does that require evidence or an argument?

 

[ZapperZ]

What specific claim are you referring to? Brick-and mortar schools dying out? All sorts of alternatives emerging? Information becoming outdated by the time a book is published? Do you really need me to provide evidence for that?

Yes, and this:

Show me where a similar content to Boas's "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" is available for free? Show me where a similar content to Mattuck's "A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in Many-Body Problem" is available free. Show me where a smilar content to Mahan's "Many-Particle Physics" is available for free.

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

Yes, and this:
Zz.

Yes, I agreed with you that core, settled, undergrad books can be, are valuable, but not those at a more advanced level. And if you want to see alternatives to brick-mortar, just look at online schools, online self-education. But I will provide more data when I have access to my PC, I am on my phone now. The whole world is changing way too fast for our institutions to cope.

 

[ZapperZ]

Yes, I agreed with you that core, settled, undergrad books can be, are valuable, but not those at a more advanced level. And if you want to see alternatives to brick-mortar, just look at online schools, online self-education. But I will provide more data when I have access to my PC, I am on my phone now. The whole world is changing way too fast for our institutions to cope.

Again, you're asking ME to do the work to find YOUR evidence to support YOUR claim!

Those books that I stated are all advanced level text. I see no such similarities anywhere online. So do not dismiss those because the burden of proof is on you!

Zz.

 

[FourEyedRaven]

Show me where a similar content to Boas's "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" is available for free? Show me where a similar content to Mattuck's "A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in Many-Body Problem" is available free. Show me where a smilar content to Mahan's "Many-Particle Physics" is available for free.

Unless you are espousing pirated copies of such books, I don't see any other similar content that is available for free. And don't start with me on Wikipedia.

Zz.

There's a collection of lecture notes on mathematics and physics from Cambridge University on the link below. It's true that lecture notes are rarely as perfected as a good textbook. But this collection of notes has the internal coherence of a university program. And they cover pretty much everything we learn in university (which is why I'm linking them in this topic). The inevitable imperfections of the lecture notes, can be compensated by reading different professors' lecture notes on the same subject.

https://ln.sync.com/dl/1f4af5c40/9hi9gt4i-evpn76tq-badt8eaz-ckxem3zf

 

[WWGD]

There's a collection of lecture notes on mathematics and physics from Cambridge University on the link below. It's true that lecture notes are rarely as perfected as a good textbook. But this collection of notes has the internal coherence of a university program. And they cover pretty much everything we learn in university (which is why I'm linking them in this topic). The inevitable imperfections of the lecture notes, can be compensated by reading different professors' lecture notes on the same subject.

https://ln.sync.com/dl/1f4af5c40/9hi9gt4i-evpn76tq-badt8eaz-ckxem3zf

Or cam be complemented / corrected by participating in sites such as this, Physics Stack Exchange, etc. I have seen people without formal education beyond undergrad that are scary good in their respective areas.

 

[ZapperZ]

There's a collection of lecture notes on mathematics and physics from Cambridge University on the link below. It's true that lecture notes are rarely as perfected as a good textbook. But this collection of notes has the internal coherence of a university program. And they cover pretty much everything we learn in university (which is why I'm linking them in this topic). The inevitable imperfections of the lecture notes, can be compensated by reading different professors' lecture notes on the same subject.

https://ln.sync.com/dl/1f4af5c40/9hi9gt4i-evpn76tq-badt8eaz-ckxem3zf

Sorry, no. Lectures notes are not textbooks. They are "condensed" summary. If my textbooks are as terse as lecture notes, I'd throw them out.

Zz.

 

[vanhees71]

If I may make a more radical comment: What, if any STEM books are worth buying given that most or all the content is available online for free? Are STEM books, if not the whole current education system ananachronisms on their way out, gasping their last breaths?

Well, I think there's still a great difference in quality comparing well-published and edited textbooks compared to some arbitrary online manuscripts. Also if I want to really learn something and work with a text, be it a textbook or research paper, I have to print it out on paper. Perhaps I'm old (fashioned) ;-(.

 

[WWGD]

Well, I think there's still a great difference in quality comparing well-published and edited textbooks compared to some arbitrary online manuscripts. Also if I want to really learn something and work with a text, be it a textbook or research paper, I have to print it out on paper. Perhaps I'm old (fashioned) ;-(.

Yes, we're not quite there yet but a larger proportion of learning is not bottom-up any more ( as in standard schooling), but top-down, lateral, etc. And I too am old-fashioned ;) and do plenty of printing and have a legacy of thousands of printouts from my school days, courtesy of the fact that printing was subsidized by school at around $.01 per page. Edit: Just to clarify, I don't believe the internet can be a perfect substitute for a classroom education just that the traditional setup of many schools do not allow them to effectively change with the times.

 

[vanhees71]

What do you mean by "bottom-up" vs. "top down" learning and how is it different in a "analogue" vs. a "digital" setting.

I think electronic media are a great addition to the tool box. I usually scan my calculations and handwritten notes to have them in an ordered with me in an ordered way. I provide manuscripts for my lectures to the students etc. Of course, I also use sometimes a projector with a presentation (though never powerpoint for aesthetical reasons) to show some plot or other graphics I'm not able to draw adequately on the black board, but that I use very rarely, because particularly in theoretical physics just flashing a presentation to the wall and telling them what's on the "slides" is not as helpful as it might seem. Developing ideas on the black board (if possible without using my notes but really rethinking the stuff on the blackboard again), including discussions with the students, is in my opinion something which provides the specific additional value of a lecture in contradistinction to other forms of teaching and learning like reading a textbook, solve problems, do some e-learning online exercise or chatting on a forum like the present one.

I think the more different media you have at hand as a learner the better, and I also think as teachers we have to carefully think about how to develop ways to use electronic media in a really useful way.

There's a big political debate in Germany about the introduction of the "new media" at primary and secondary schools as well as in universities. The discussion concerning the schools is usually only about hardware, including computers, laptops, tablets as well as LAN/WLAN access. This is of course a necessary prerequisite, particularly given that it's shame how Germany is lacking in this simply infrastructural necessities, but now that finally they managed to finance it via federal money (the school and university education in Germany is due to the states, and it's not so easy to fund something concerning this by federal money) they all of a sudden realize that they don't have sufficient didactically high-quality content to offer on all this hardware, which indeed is an even greater shame. Just equipping the schools with hardware without a didactical concept and sufficient high-quality material for each learning/age level makes of course the entire endeavor useless before it has really started.

I was really shocked when some years ago my niece came home from school telling that they now had some IT lessons, and she was a bit disappointed about the fact that it was just learning to work with the Microsoft Office package rather than doing some programming.

There's really a lot to be desired concerning a useful application of the great possibilities of the "new media", which goes beyond simple storage and availability of information in form of the "old media", i.e., simply pdfs of textbooks and the like, though it's of course also good to have this, but it's not enough to really provide a true additional value to them.

My conclusion is, we should take the opportunities serious and develop some great additional learning offers for the students using all kinds of "e-learning" concepts but not forget also the well established old-fashioned standard equipment, including black-board teaching and discussions at lectures and recitation sessions.

 

[ZapperZ]

Yes, we're not quite there yet but a larger proportion of learning is not bottom-up any more ( as in standard schooling), but top-down, lateral, etc.

I disagree with this. Historically, education has been "top-down", not "bottom-up". Classes used to be where the professor, at the top, teaches and is the source of information, while the students, at the bottom, absorbs the information. It has been a one-way flow of knowledge from the top down to the bottom.

This isn't true anymore, and certainly not at the General Physics level where the "bottom-up" approach has been implemented in many schools. Eric Mazur's "Peer Instruction" methodology is one very clear example, where student-student interactions and instructions play a major role in a classroom, and where the instructor plays the role of a "facilitator".

The same can be said about "Studio Physics" concepts, where the students themselves make their own discovery or activity. None of these were widely practiced a decade ago, and none of these are "top-down" approach to education.

Zz.

 

[FourEyedRaven]

Sorry, no. Lectures notes are not textbooks. They are "condensed" summary. If my textbooks are as terse as lecture notes, I'd throw them out.

Zz.

Sure, they're not textbooks. Even a good textbook usually needs a second edition to be mature enough. But good textbooks usually grow out of lecture notes. What's happening now is that many authors are publishing their lecture notes online a couple of years before the book's publication (eg https://www.slac.stanford.edu/~mpeskin/#hep ; https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/egp/ ; http://www.pmaweb.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2012/ ; https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~r-ash/ ). It's rarely as polished as a textbook, but it's nothing to sneeze at either. And even lecture notes that have not been published as books can be very good (eg http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html )

 

[ZapperZ]

Sure, they're not textbooks. Even a good textbook usually needs a second edition to be mature enough. But good textbooks usually grow out of lecture notes. What's happening now is that many authors are publishing their lecture notes online a couple of years before the book's publication (eg https://www.slac.stanford.edu/~mpeskin/#hep ; https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/egp/ ; http://www.pmaweb.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2012/ ; https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~r-ash/ ). It's rarely as polished as a textbook, but it's nothing to sneeze at either. And even lecture notes that have not been published as books can be very good (eg http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html )

You are confusing the issue here, which unfortunately often occurs in a thread on PF. Remember, I was countering @WWGD assertion on the question whether"... any STEM books are worth buying given that most or all the content is available online for free... " and I challenged him to show ANY source as good as the classic texts that we currently used.

My reply was NOT a knock on lecture notes! If we both agree they are not on par with these textbooks, then what are we arguing here? The existence of these lecture notes are still NOT evidence that there are equal-caliber sources available "for free".

So where do we disagree here?

Zz.

 

[WWGD]

Well, my statement was too sweeping. Still, one can go very far training oneself outside of the standard school system nowadays outside of the need to conduct experiments. Maybe a solid undergrad is enough as has been the case with mentors here itself.

 

[FourEyedRaven]

You are confusing the issue here, which unfortunately often occurs in a thread on PF. Remember, I was countering @WWGD assertion on the question whether"... any STEM books are worth buying given that most or all the content is available online for free... " and I challenged him to show ANY source as good as the classic texts that we currently used.

My reply was NOT a knock on lecture notes! If we both agree they are not on par with these textbooks, then what are we arguing here? The existence of these lecture notes are still NOT evidence that there are equal-caliber sources available "for free".

So where do we disagree here?

Zz.

The disagreement is not significant, it's a matter of degree. You sounded too dismissive of online material. I was arguing against being dismissive.

 

[ZapperZ]

The disagreement is not significant, it's a matter of degree. You sounded too dismissive of online material. I was arguing against being dismissive.

then where were you when classic textbooks were being dismissed?

Zz.

 

[FourEyedRaven]

then where were you when classic textbooks were being dismissed?

Zz.

Relaxing

 

[vanhees71]

Well, my statement was too sweeping. Still, one can go very far training oneself outside of the standard school system nowadays outside of the need to conduct experiments. Maybe a solid undergrad is enough as has been the case with mentors here itself.

Sure, at the end you have to learn everything yourself. The question is, how to provide information, and I think it should be a mix of many methods. There's not one single method which is the one and only one that fits all students.

E.g., in high school I was pretty bad in math until about the 8th grade, and I got ennoyed by getting bad marks in math. The teachers couldn't explain the material well, and I don't tell what I think about (German) high-school textbooks in math. So I went to the city library and looked for math books I could understand. Fortunately they had a multi-volume textbook called "Mathematics for Engineers", starting with "elementary math" and then calculus. The "elementary-math" book was the revelation. All of a sudden I could understand why the geometry works as it does, because they had kinds of proofs in that book perfectly suited to understand Euclidean geometry. It were not rigorous proofs as in a university textbook for math majors, which wouldn't have helped me much at the time but I all of a sudden got the idea that math is not a recipy to blindly follow but something that could be understood and you that you can deduce from very simple "obvious" ideas more complicated theorems. From then on I didn't listen to my teachers anymore and all I used the school book for was to read off the homework problems to be solved. From then on I was good in math.

Of course good instruction (top-down approach in the above discussed sense, were a good teacher gives a lecture-like thing) of course helps a lot to shorten the trouble to find the information one needs in a comprehensible form, and it's always also possible to ask the teacher when one doesn't understand something, and he can answer you in a personal way to get you to understand the issue. That's what you can never get from a book. Then you of course also need to get active by solving problems, which you can also do in various ways, i.e., sitting alone at home and trying to figure the problems out for yourself or you can meet with other students and try to solve them together, which as a side effect trains you also to discuss a subject you and maybe also the others haven't yet understood themselves.

The latter is imho the most important part of the entire business of studying at a university, because you learn to attack problems of which you and also the people around you know the answer, i.e., precisely the situation you have in doing research, and this skill is something not only needed in academic research but also elsewhere outside of the universities and research labs.

 

[WWGD]

And I don't know in Germany, but in the US, people are hired as teachers in universities based on their ability to do research and bring in funding for the school, not for their ability to teach effectively. I can tell Zz is a dedicated teacher interested in his students but, frankly, many are not ,and this makes going to lectures a waste of time. At the pregrad or undergrad level , as you said, there is little room for experimentation and customization of the material. I see tweaking and experimenting as an essential aspect of learning and schooling as present in general does not in general allow for that.

 

[boneh3ad]

Yes, I agreed with you that core, settled, undergrad books can be, are valuable, but not those at a more advanced level. And if you want to see alternatives to brick-mortar, just look at online schools, online self-education. But I will provide more data when I have access to my PC, I am on my phone now. The whole world is changing way too fast for our institutions to cope.

If you think that universities should simply be job training centers, then I suppose I can see where you are coming from, but even advanced materials don't change that rapidly. Undergraduate material is core material that barely changes at all and really only benefits form updated context, which is the responsibility of the instructor as much as it is that of the book.

Graduate material for courses is still largely core material. The real cutting edge learning occurs in the research lab and by reading research papers, which are published and change much more rapidly than the textbooks presenting core materials. Even still, it turns out that if one is going to have a strong grasp of, say, modern, cutting-edge quantum information (or any other such rapidly-developing field), they still need a strong foundation in the aspects of the science that haven't changed in decades.

And I don't know in Germany, but in the US, people are hired as teachers in universities based on their ability to do research and bring in funding for the school, not for their ability to teach effectively. I can tell Zz is a dedicated teacher interested in his students but, frankly, many are not ,and this makes going to lectures a waste of time. At the pregrad or undergrad level , as you said, there is little room for experimentation and customization of the material. I see tweaking and experimenting as an essential aspect of learning and schooling as present in general does not in general allow for that.

Most professors in the US (or at least the younger ones) genuinely have an interest in teaching students. Where curricula become overly prescriptive, it is usually (but not always) because of requirements imposed upon departments from a legislature, accreditation board, or higher level at the university.

Signed,

A US university professor

 

[WWGD]

If you think that universities should simply be job training centers, then I suppose I can see where you are coming from, but even advanced materials don't change that rapidly. Undergraduate material is core material that barely changes at all and really only benefits form updated context, which is the responsibility of the instructor as much as it is that of the book.

Graduate material for courses is still largely core material. The real cutting edge learning occurs in the research lab and by reading research papers, which are published and change much more rapidly than the textbooks presenting core materials. Even still, it turns out that if one is going to have a strong grasp of, say, modern, cutting-edge quantum information (or any other such rapidly-developing field), they still need a strong foundation in the aspects of the science that haven't changed in decades.
Most professors in the US (or at least the younger ones) genuinely have an interest in teaching students. Where curricula become overly prescriptive, it is usually (but not always) because of requirements imposed upon departments from a legislature, accreditation board, or higher level at the university.

Signed,

A US university professor

You're agreeing with me. I stated a core us needed and should be kept. Beyond that, it is up for grabs as the material soon becomes outdated. Would you keep, e.g., books on Networking, Oop, A.I beyond the basic level for more than a few years? And I guess teaching quality may vary. I had several professors who had no office hours, graded no work, some times just came into class, wrote for an hour on the board and just walked out afterwards without a single exchange in the process. And I paid a high out-of-state tuition for sonething I could have taught myself. And, no, I don't believe schools should be training centers but the training and job- finding aspects should be considered too.

 

[gmax137]

in the US, people are hired as teachers in universities based on their ability to do research and bring in funding for the school, not for their ability to teach effectively

This I think is an overstated generalization.

I went to a small college (not university) for undergrad and I have to say that my physics professors were, without exception, highly effective teachers. My graduate school professors (a large state university) were also effective (with only a few exceptions, in classes I was not much interested in -- so I bear as much or more responsibility than they do).

 

[WWGD]

This I think is an overstated generalization.

I went to a small college (not university) for undergrad and I have to say that my physics professors were, without exception, highly effective teachers. My graduate school professors (a large state university) were also effective (with only a few exceptions, in classes I was not much interested in -- so I bear as much or more responsibility than they do).

I think your case is typical of smaller schools. In larger schools, publish-perish and other pressures sap time , energy and resources away from teaching. Moreover, I believe the traditional lecture format should die a quick death. And I do know what I am talking about. I had my own format for lecturing which received positivr reviews and I had an attendance rate of 95%+ during that time. High-powered schools advertise the Nobelists or high-profile staff most of whom will never interact with a freshman or even Masters student, as these faculty will be busy with their research and flying to-and-fro congresses and meets with colleagues. Instead, the classes will most likely be taught by T.As , who only took the class a few semesters prior. Mr high-powered prof will not be hanging out in a student lounge asking Johnny or Jill how their Calc2 class is coming about.