Ask HN: Expository/Succinct Books on Modern Physics
27 pointsby rramadassa month ago8 comments
  • senorcraba month ago
    Freshman university textbooks have what you need. Two of the most popular are:

    - University Physics by Young and Freedman

    - Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick, Walker

    - Modern Physics by Krane

    You might guess that real physics is not actually in freshman textbooks, and you are right. Modern physics requires rigorous mathematics.

    For a nonrigorous introduction/overview:

    - The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

    If you want to actually learn almost all of physics at a high level:

    - Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau

    Note that Landau is extremely difficult.

    If you want to learn the math needed for modern physics (topology) in the context of physics, nonrigorously:

    - Geometry, Topology, and Physics by Nakahara

    • rramadassa month ago
      Nice list. I had known of most of the books here; studied Resnick & Halliday (decades ago in bachelors) and have also perused Penrose's book. Landau/Lifshitz is of course well known.

      The Nakahara book is new to me; Thanks for the pointer.

    • codinhooda month ago
      > Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick, Walker

      I strongly recommend this textbook. I used in college, and it's really good. There are a lot of problems for each chapter, I suggest doing them as they help a lot.

    • aristofuna month ago
      Landau was Einstein+ level genius and the course was a soviet theoretical physics bible many years ago. But it’s not a good educational resource by modern standards and pretty dated.
      • senorcraba month ago
        True it is pretty dated. OP was requesting resources that cover *all* of physics and Landau popped into mind. Is there a modern series of textbooks that offers such a broad coverage?
        • aristofuna month ago
          Landau these days doesn’t look like a “broad coverage” at all.

          More like “many specific topics and areas covered in a set of books under same authors”.

          Also Landau was one of the last (probably the last) polymath physicists who covered a wide range of fields.

          I doubt it is even technically possible to cover even 30% of all modern theoretical physics in a single course with depth comparable to Landau books.

    • vittorea month ago
      Landau! my soviet physics teacher would say the same thing!
  • OgsyedIEa month ago
    Most topics develop into advanced rabbitholes that takes years of learning in just that one topic to assume proficiency, but for somebody looking to get a detailed overview Young and Freedman's University Physics with Modern Physics is the best introduction to a little bit of everything.

    The mathematical prerequisites are essentially algebra, precalculus and basic calculus, all of which are excellently covered by the OpenStax series of free textbooks published by Rice University.

    • rramadassa month ago
      I have heard good things about this book but it seems its coverage of Modern Physics might be a bit too short? What do you think?

      Have you looked at Walecka's books? They seem to have sufficient detail/depth but am not sure as to their mathematical rigour. Maybe too much for undergrad level?

      • OgsyedIEa month ago
        I've skimmed Walecka's Topics and it seems like an excellent resource on intermediate modern physics for somebody who is separately studying undergraduate mathematics, particularly the undergraduate content of real analysis, linear algebra, differential equations and group theory, but tough for somebody who is taking much less mathematics than physics.

        If you can commit to the two fields of study in parallel Walecka should be perfectly suitable but if not then there may be eventual problems with keeping up.

        • rramadassa month ago
          Yeah, Walecka's books seem to be more mathematically rigorous than most others. Because of that it also seems to be more succinct. That is something i am looking for so maybe i need to get that while boning up on the requisite mathematics.

          Have you looked at the Sproull/Patil books?

  • timthorna month ago
    Felder & Felder's Modern Physics is pretty good (https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/physic...). I also second OgsyedIE's suggestion og Young & Freedman.
    • rramadassa month ago
      The Felder & Felder book looks really good and doesn't seem as mathematical as Walecka i.e. more expository. Looking at the ToC/Sample the chapters have a good progression and are nicely setup.

      The print copy however seems prohibitively expensive :-(

      • timthorna month ago
        The print copy of Felder and Felder looks to be cheaper than Young and Freedman at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon?
        • rramadassa month ago
          I am based in India, so Amazon.in has a low-price Indian edition of Young & Freedman while Felder & Felder is the original US edition which is quite expensive.

          I have decided to get all (the seven i have listed in my post above) of John Dirk Walecka's books since low-price editions are available and they seem quite rigorous with enough depth to boot. Pairing it with some other easier text (perhaps Young & Freedman) would cover my bases nicely.

  • thraxila month ago
    Leonard Susskind's "The Theoretical Minimum" series is a great start. His corresponding Stanford lectures are on youtube as well and are a nice supplement.
  • QuadmasterXLIIa month ago
    Roger Penrose’s (Yes that Penrose) Road to Reality is excellent. Be warned the first 382 pages are just building the mathematical foundation he needs for the second half. But if you don’t do this, you can’t really write a book about modern physics targeting undergrad math.
    • senorcraba month ago
      Road to Reality is good to get a general overview of *everything* but I dont think you can actually learn the things he talks about. For example, the jump from calculus in R^2 to Riemannian surfaces is insane and leaves a ton out
      • QuadmasterXLIIa month ago
        It’s very plausible that it’s in the same category as Wikipedia where it’s only useful if you’ve already learned it once and forgotten it
  • egghacka month ago
    David Tong's textbooks which are based on lecture notes he made public: https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/books.html
    • rramadassa month ago
      These seem pretty good; had not known of these.

      Thanks for the pointer.

    • timthorna month ago
      Ah yes, and they are very readable indeed.
  • kurtis_reeda month ago
    Understanding Time and Space by Steven E Landsburg (subtitle: An Invitation to the Theory of Relativity for Anyone Who is Now, or Has Ever Been, an Inquisitive High School Student)
  • vittorea month ago
    I think I used this exact Ivanov book (but in Russian) in school and quite liked it.
    • rramadassa month ago
      It is not meant to be the primary textbook but an adjunct to one. It succinctly covers a lot within 500 pages.

      There are more advanced Physics books on that site which are also worth looking into.