Reddit mentions: The best electromagnetism books

I'd like to give you my two cents as well on how to proceed here. If nothing else, this will be a second opinion. If I could redo my physics education, this is how I'd want it done.

If you are truly wanting to learn these fields in depth I cannot stress how important it is to actually work problems out of these books, not just read them. There is a certain understanding that comes from struggling with problems that you just can't get by reading the material. On that note, I would recommend getting the Schaum's outline to whatever subject you are studying if you can find one. They are great books with hundreds of solved problems and sample problems for you to try with the answers in the back. When you get to the point you can't find Schaums anymore, I would recommend getting as many solutions manuals as possible. The problems will get very tough, and it's nice to verify that you did the problem correctly or are on the right track, or even just look over solutions to problems you decide not to try.

Basics

I second Stewart's Calculus cover to cover (except the final chapter on differential equations) and Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Not all sections from HRW are necessary, but be sure you have the fundamentals of mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermal physics down at the level of HRW.

Once you're done with this move on to studying differential equations. Many physics theorems are stated in terms of differential equations so really getting the hang of these is key to moving on. Differential equations are often taught as two separate classes, one covering ordinary differential equations and one covering partial differential equations. In my opinion, a good introductory textbook to ODEs is one by Morris Tenenbaum and Harry Pollard. That said, there is another book by V. I. Arnold that I would recommend you get as well. The Arnold book may be a bit more mathematical than you are looking for, but it was written as an introductory text to ODEs and you will have a deeper understanding of ODEs after reading it than your typical introductory textbook. This deeper understanding will be useful if you delve into the nitty-gritty parts of classical mechanics. For partial differential equations I recommend the book by Haberman. It will give you a good understanding of different methods you can use to solve PDEs, and is very much geared towards problem-solving.

From there, I would get a decent book on Linear Algebra. I used the one by Leon. I can't guarantee that it's the best book out there, but I think it will get the job done.

This should cover most of the mathematical training you need to move onto the intermediate level physics textbooks. There will be some things that are missing, but those are usually covered explicitly in the intermediate texts that use them (i.e. the Delta function). Still, if you're looking for a good mathematical reference, my recommendation is Lua. It may be a good idea to go over some basic complex analysis from this book, though it is not necessary to move on.

Intermediate

At this stage you need to do intermediate level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal physics at the very least. For electromagnetism, Griffiths hands down. In my opinion, the best pedagogical book for intermediate classical mechanics is Fowles and Cassidy. Once you've read these two books you will have a much deeper understanding of the stuff you learned in HRW. When you're going through the mechanics book pay particular attention to generalized coordinates and Lagrangians. Those become pretty central later on. There is also a very old book by Robert Becker that I think is great. It's problems are tough, and it goes into concepts that aren't typically covered much in depth in other intermediate mechanics books such as statics. I don't think you'll find a torrent for this, but it is 5 bucks on Amazon. That said, I don't think Becker is necessary. For quantum, I cannot recommend Zettili highly enough. Get this book. Tons of worked out examples. In my opinion, Zettili is the best quantum book out there at this level. Finally for thermal physics I would use Mandl. This book is merely sufficient, but I don't know of a book that I liked better.

This is the bare minimum. However, if you find a particular subject interesting, delve into it at this point. If you want to learn Solid State physics there's Kittel. Want to do more Optics? How about Hecht. General relativity? Even that should be accessible with Schutz. Play around here before moving on. A lot of very fascinating things should be accessible to you, at least to a degree, at this point.

Advanced

Before moving on to physics, it is once again time to take up the mathematics. Pick up Arfken and Weber. It covers a great many topics. However, at times it is not the best pedagogical book so you may need some supplemental material on whatever it is you are studying. I would at least read the sections on coordinate transformations, vector analysis, tensors, complex analysis, Green's functions, and the various special functions. Some of this may be a bit of a review, but there are some things Arfken and Weber go into that I didn't see during my undergraduate education even with the topics that I was reviewing. Hell, it may be a good idea to go through the differential equations material in there as well. Again, you may need some supplemental material while doing this. For special functions, a great little book to go along with this is Lebedev.

Beyond this, I think every physicist at the bare minimum needs to take graduate level quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. For quantum, I recommend Cohen-Tannoudji. This is a great book. It's easy to understand, has many supplemental sections to help further your understanding, is pretty comprehensive, and has more worked examples than a vast majority of graduate text-books. That said, the problems in this book are LONG. Not horrendously hard, mind you, but they do take a long time.

Unfortunately, Cohen-Tannoudji is the only great graduate-level text I can think of. The textbooks in other subjects just don't measure up in my opinion. When you take Classical mechanics I would get Goldstein as a reference but a better book in my opinion is Jose/Saletan as it takes a geometrical approach to the subject from the very beginning. At some point I also think it's worth going through Arnold's treatise on Classical. It's very mathematical and very difficult, but I think once you make it through you will have as deep an understanding as you could hope for in the subject.

Easiest introduction (too simple, but a great overview):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-plasma-physics-controlled-fusion/dp/0306413329/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973723&sr=8-1&keywords=francis+chen+plasma

Better introduction (actually has real mathematics, this is like the Chen book but better for people who want to learn actual plasma physics because it doesn't baby you):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-R-J-Goldston/dp/075030183X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973766&sr=8-1&keywords=goldston+plasma

Great introduction, and FREE:
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html

Good magnetohydronamics book:
http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-MHD-Jeffrey-P-Freidberg/dp/1107006252/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974045&sr=8-1&keywords=ideal+magnetohydrodynamics

Great waves book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Plasmas-Thomas-H-Stix/dp/0883188597/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974079&sr=8-1&keywords=stix+waves

Computational shit because half of plasma physics is computing that shit:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Plasma-Physics-Applications-Astrophysics/dp/0813342112/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974113&sr=8-2&keywords=tajima+plasma

http://www.amazon.com/Plasma-Physics-Computer-Simulation-Series/dp/0750310251/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974148&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsall+langdon

Then there are also great papers, and I posted some links to papers in a previous post, but if you're asking to start, you want to start with Chen (and if it's too simple for you, move onto Fitzpatrick or Goldston). I also forgot to mention that Bellan and Ichimaru also have great books for introductory plasma physics.

EDIT:

I'd also like to add that I love you because this subreddit almost never ever mentions plasma physics.

It seems to me that introductory electromagnetism is, physically, very simple.

If the subject is difficult, I suspect it has more to do with the math than the physics. Unlike introductory mechanics, most problems in E/M rely heavily on vectors and vector calculus (and for many students E/M is also a first introduction to other more sophisticated mathematical ideas, like Laplace's equation and coordinate transformations).

As far as introductory level books go, though, I think Griffiths handles the added mathematical rigour of E/M quite well. Griffiths explains his math in great detail throughout the text, and chapter 1 is a thorough and complete, but straightforward and simple, treatment of vector calculus; I recommend that you study it in great detail (and work many problems) before continuing to the physics. Preparation in linear algebra is probably also helpful as well.

Also, keep in mind that there are several approaches to electromagnetism. As I recall, Griffiths develops the theory more or less historically, and only makes the connection with special relativity in the final chapters. If you want to look at the ideas from another angle, you could try a book like Purcell or Schwartz, which use special relativity to derive magnetism as a theoretical, rather than experimental, result. Personally, I find this approach more elegant, interesting, and even a little easier; nonetheless, understanding both approaches is important in the long run.

Edit: By the way, another book to consider is Shadowitz (I have only read the first 5 chapters, and I still recommend it on that basis alone). Shadowitz develops the basic theory very logically and consistently: chapters 2 through 5 cover the divergence and curl of E and B (one chapter each). At times the explanations are lengthy, but this might be useful for a struggling student.

There are a lot of good suggestions in here, but I'm wondering if any of them are really applicable to what you want to do. An electrodynamics book like Griffiths will come at magnetism from the perspective of field and/or tensor mathematics. A solid state book like Kittel or Ashcroft and Mermin would come at it starting from a phenomenological perspective and moving into things like local moments and band structure. I'm guessing here, but it seems like what you want is more of an idea of the interaction of magnetism and materials or observable phenomena. Either of those approaches would get you there, but it wouldn't be the most direct approach and it would be a lot more work than you need to put in if that's all you want. They would also both require a lot more math than it seems like you're really comfortable with, and both topics are complex enough that physics/chemistry/MSE students struggle with them without good instructors (and sometimes even with them).

Instead of starting with any of those, I'd suggest you look at some lower level, phenomenology and observation based works. Nicola Spaldin's Magnetic Materials: Fundamentals and Applications might be a good place to start. It's pretty low level: I think a motivated undergrad could deal with it after taking a year of freshman physics, but I think that's what you want, at least to start with. It gives a good overview of different kinds of magnetism and the different kinds of magnetic materials, as well as field generation and detection.

Incidentally, if you decide to be a masochist and go with a solid state book, I think Ashcroft & Mermin is a better text than Kittel. Kittel spent 50 years and eight editions trying to fit the new developments in the field into the book without making it significantly thicker, so Ashcroft has a narrower scope but covers what it does have in more depth. I find the writing style clearer and more accessible as well.

Real answers for real high school student interesting in the conventional path to a conventional first course in quantum physics. Much of this advice applies more to the American school system, as that's where I was educated.

You're right, the first job is to get to calculus. Khan Academy is a good place for that! It's a bit messy, but just follow the knowledge web they have set up until you get to the topic of limits, which is the front door to introductory calculus. Along the way you'll also learn algebra and geometry. As soon as you can and as soon as you're ready for it, try and take a proper calculus class in your school. If you're in the United States, try to take AP Calculus.

If possible, take a physics class at your high school. If it's a reasonably big school, they'll have an algebra-based physics class and may even offer a college-level physics course that uses calculus (if you're in the United States, this will be called AP Physics C). Take this as soon as possible! If it's not offered, you may be able to take the equivalent course at a nearby college before you leave high school.

If you've done all of this right, you should know how to calculate things called derivatives and integrals, manipulate things called sequences and series, and understand the the basic rules of mechanics (force, momentum, energy, etc) and the electric and magnetic fields phrased in terms of calculus. In the language of most American universities, you now know Physics I & II and Calculus I & II.

Physics-wise, the usual next step is to take a course on waves, vibrations, and oscillations (see this table or contents) and / or a survey course on modern physics (see this standard text).

Math-wise, the next step is to take classes usually called

• multivariable calculus / vector calculus
  
• ordinary differential equations
  
• linear algebra
  
  The simplest way to do this is just to take these courses in a college or university, but there are also great online resources. I can personally endorse MIT OCW and Paul's Online Notes. Many schools also offer surveys of applied math at this level (with names like "mathematical physics" or "mathematical methods") that cover the basics of partial differential equations, fourier series, and more linear algebra / multivariable calculus / ODEs. See this book by Boas for a good idea of the content.
  
  Once you know all of that, you're ready to ready a real textbook on quantum physics. Some of the usual standards for a physicists' first course are the books by Griffiths or Shankar.
  
  Edited for link formatting
  
  TL;DR To go the physicist route, learn the following through school if you can swing it, but independent learning is possible and good resources exist online:
  
  
• Algebra I and II
  
• Geometry
  
• Calculus I and II
  
  Then these three in any order:
  
  
• Multivariable calculus
  
• Ordinary differential equations
  
• Linear algebra
  
  Then this, if you're going the usual physicist route:
  
  
• Mathematical methods
  
  On the physics side, you should take
  
  
• Physics I (sometimes called 'mechanics') with calculus
  
• Physics II (sometimes called 'electromagnetism) with calculus
  
  and then one or both of
  
  
• Modern Physics (sometimes called Physics III)
  
• Vibrations, waves, and oscillations (also sometimes called Physics III)

You're English is great.

I'd like to reemphasize /u/Plaetean's great suggestion of learning the math. That's so important and will make your later career much easier. Khan Academy seems to go all through differential equations. All of the more advanced topics they have differential and integral calculus of the single variable, multivariable calculus, ordinary differential equations, and linear algebra are very useful in physics.

As to textbooks that cover that material I've heard Div, Grad, Curl for multivariable/vector calculus is good, as is Strang for linear algebra. Purcell an introductory E&M text also has an excellent discussion of the curl.

As for introductory physics I love Purcell's E&M. I'd recommend the third edition to you as although it uses SI units, which personally I dislike, it has far more problems than the second, and crucially has many solutions to them included, which makes it much better for self study. As for Mechanics there are a million possible textbooks, and online sources. I'll let someone else recommend that.

Usually papers aren't the best way to start learning about a topic unless you're already pretty advanced in the field. It would probably be a good idea to get a textbook on condensed matter theory to start with, then once you're comfortable with the treatment of the topic in there you'll be better prepared to understand the papers. I suggest Altland and Simon's Condensed Matter Field Theory. Its a pretty great book to start learning from for most topics in condensed matter theory (plus it uses functional integral methods right from the start) and, unlike many other more expensive books that I've seen, it has a section devoted to topological states.

Hi, I'm about to start a PhD in computational plasma physics in September, concentrating on simulating turbulent transport in the divertor region and the scrape-off layer of tokamaks.

I won a bit of money from my undergrad institution, and I thought it would be fitting to use it to buy some reference textbooks for my PhD. However, although it's easy to find books, it's not so easy to find good reviews of them. I haven't done much plasma physics before but I will be having a lot of lectures on it in September, so I think more advanced books would be more useful, as I will be recommended plenty of resources for the more basic stuff.

Some of the books I've been looking at are:

• Ideal MHD - Freidberg
  
• Advanced Magnetohydrodynamics: With Applications to Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas - Goedbloed
  
• Computational Plasma Physics: With Applications To Fusion And Astrophysics - Tajima
  
• Plasma Physics via Computer Simulation - Birdsall & Langdon
  
• Plasma Confinement - Hazeltine & Meiss
  
• Waves in Plasmas - Stix
  
• Computational Methods in Plasma Physics - Jardin
  
• Visual And Computational Plasma Physics - Hsu
  
  but I'm open to any suggestions. I'm particularly interested in books about computational methods, and maybe also about scientific programming in C++.
  
  Thanks!

I'm not sure what you mean by a "field study". If you mean experiments, then yes, there are likely hundreds or thousands, as this is well-established theory that predicts numerous results in condensed matter physics; e.g. electronic properties of metals, superconductivity, superfluidity, etc.

This topic can be found in any of the standard texts on many-body physics, a subject also often referred to as condensed-matter quantum field theory. My favorites are "AGD" (i.e. the guys who invented this technique), Mahan, and Coleman (which is the most pedagogical of the three).

If you're looking for something to Google, you might want to try "finite temperature field theory" and "Matsubara formalism".

I'm not sure what your level is, but this is pretty technical stuff; I literally never heard of these concepts (other than randomly hearing the phrase "imaginary time") until taking a graduate course on many-body theory. I honestly don't know of any popular books that discuss finite temperature QFT in detail (not that I'm particularly well-versed in the popular literature, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that usually makes its way into the usual "multiverse/wormhole/strings/black holes" books). If you want to know more in detail, but don't know what a time evolution operator is, you'll need to learn basic nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; R. Shankar's book is a good way to learn about that, though Griffiths is a bit more accessible.

Now that the 3rd edition has been published, used copies of the 2nd edition of The Art of Electronics is super cheap. I think this is the best intro circuits book for self study. Alternatively, I've really enjoyed Practical Electronics for Inventors too, and it covers more modern stuff (like it has a chapter on arduino). Both of these start with the basics, though Practical Electronics written for a more general audience so it is easier on the math.

For electromagnetics, I've heard Electricity and Magnetism is pretty good. It does cover some circuits stuff, but so much of circuits is about electronic components that you really need a dedicated circuits book to understand them.

I said:

>A list of physics equations does not a physicist make.

You said:

>Of course, I totally agree!

My reaction: GREAT!

Then you said:

>I am looking for all of those laws either in PDF format or On a website where I can copy/paste.

ಠ_ಠ

Having a PDF of all the equations of all of physics wouldn't provide you with any understanding of any of them. You would be just as clueless as you are now, except you would've spent a great deal of effort compiling a PDF filled with equations you don't understand.

You appear to have missed the point of my post:

>Until you are prepared to sit down with a textbook and learn Newton's laws and the glycolysis cycle, you'll never really understand science.

I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm really not, but you have the kind of wide-eyed innocence that leads to just enough knowledge to be dangerous, but not enough to realize how little you understand.

Here is my favorite introductory physics book. In it, you'll learn Newton's laws and how to apply them. I'm also a fan of Volume 2, where you'll learn about electricity and magnetism. I'm not familiar with the newest editions, but I liked the first edition so feel free to pick them up used. Or heck, pirate the PDFs from somewhere.

You'll need a good grasp of calculus for both books, but if you seriously want to teach yourself physics, that is the kind of work that it takes. I don't have any good opinions on whats a good calculus book unfortunately, but I suggest you make it through derivatives and integrals before starting the physics books.

A book that I personally like is "Electromagnetic Fields" by Roald Wangsness.

https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Fields-2nd-Roald-Wangsness/dp/0471811866

I find is to be more of a predecessor to Jackson than Griffiths. It goes through the same topics, but I find in a bit more structured level (in some aspects). He does not discuss the dirac delta function (for some reason) so Griffiths is nice to supplement this book. The problems are equally challenging, some more so, and some more interesting. Check it out if you can, I think it deserves more praise.

Take a charge just sitting there, and suddenly whack it. A moving charge has a different electric field than a stationary one, it's strongest in the plane perpendicular to the motion. The field lines for this moving charge will be straight, but squished towards that plane.

But if you're a light year away, you can't know that instantly. You'll still see the same field that the stationary charge made. The information that the charge is now moving propagates out at the speed of light, so you get a shell moving outward in which the field suddenly shifts, from the stationary charge field to the moving charge field. That is a light wave.

You can also see from this description how the intensity depends on what angle you're at, and why it depends on acceleration (the faster you accelerate, the thinner the shell/wave and the bigger the change in E, so the big E in the shell is even bigger).

Why do you need acceleration? If the charge has been uniformly moving forever, the field will be "correct" everywhere. Of course, if you suddenly stop it, you'll launch another wave. If you move the charge sinusoidally, you'd get pretty much what you'd expect.

I can't draw a nice picture, but this is basically what's on the cover of the latest edition of Morin/Purcell E&M. That book is where I heard about this nice intuitive picture, which is great for people like me who can't do advanced math. :D

http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026

It was two different books 3 years ago for Physics for Engineers and Physics 2 for engineers. It could be a bit different now. Surefire way to tell is to email the Prof, or ask next week.

The Physics 1 book came with a code to do homework online via WebAssign, which was required. I didn't buy the physical book, I just bought the code that came with an e-book from the website. Physics 1 has been the same class for literally over a hundred years, so any text book will work if you're tight on money. Just be sure you can do the homework.

Physics 2 was a different book. The cover was black and green, with a little diagram of a red ball with a grid plane and spirally things around it. My class didn't have online homework. My class was also an experimental structure at the time, I forgot the acronym for it, but our lab and lecture were blended into one session. I'm pretty sure the normal style class used the same books.

Edit: /u/motsu35 remembered the title. This was my Physics 2 book. It looks like there is a part 1 which covers Physics 1, but I'm not sure if it's the book we used, since I never had the physical copy.

For freshman/ sophmore honors EM in the US, I think that's A-level in Britain or something? Anyways, Purcell and Morin's Electricity and Magnetism is absolutely great.

Basically it was written by Purcell, Nobel Prize winner in 1952, and uses special relativity and a few other assumptions to derive all of electricity and magnetism, rather than the other way around. Morin came along in the third edition, added a bunch of problems and changed the units from Gaussian to MKS. If your mechanics course covers some special relativity, I strongly recommend this book.

Warning, vector calculus is necessary, Purcell gives an overview, but it's not a full treatment.

Third edition with Morin's extra problems

Unfortunately, a good understanding of quantum mechanics requires a basic understanding of classical physics.

I would recommend "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukov. https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/0060959681/ref=sr_1_1 "6 Easy Pieces" by Richard P. Feineman https://www.amazon.com/Six-Easy-Pieces-Essentials-Explained/dp/0465025277/ref=sr_1_1? My personal favorite is "Understanding Physics" by Isaac Asimov https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Physics-Volumes-Magnetism-Electricity/dp/B000RG7YPG/ref=sr_1_2? HTH

Beware of trying to get a "physical intuition" for the potentials- they're really just mathematical tools to aid in the solution of the real fields, E and B.

That said, sometimes the choice of vector potential is easy. If we look at their respective wave equations: ∇^2 A + β^2 A = -μJ and ∇^2 F + β^2 F = -εM, we can see that the sources for A and F are J and M, respectively. This is handy for radiation problems where you will have currents on antennas and equivalent currents on surfaces (say, for aperture radiation).

The choice isn't as obvious in waveguide analysis. I've taken graduate EM courses with both Balanis' text and Jin's. Balanis is more explicit and mathematical, where Jin tries to explain more intuitively. If you can track down a copy of Balanis, you'll see in Chapter 6 of the second edition that he's more explicit about which vector potentials you can use to solve a problem, assuming you know whether your fields are TEM, TM, or TE.

You're a bit unlucky to have been trying to get some intuition about the fields for a TEM case- since such fields can be constructed with nonzero A, F, or both. Something like a TE mode in a rectangular waveguide could only be constructed from nonzero F.

Edit: math formatting

It comes out when you derive the dielectric function as a correlation function in many-body pertubation theory in a Bloch basis. You will in general get an infinite series of Feynman diagrams corresponding to virtual particle-hole pair interactions.

In the Random Phase Approximation for an electron gas the dielectric function is the Lindhard function, which as you can see has a sum over electron-hole pairs. The slightly more realistic and complicated expression in the case of transverse polarized fields and crystalline solid is in many books on solid state physics, e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Solid-Physics-Second-Giuseppe-Grosso/dp/0123850304/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449329113&sr=1-9&keywords=solid+state+physics

The equation is basically the overlap of the dipole of all particle-hole pairs with the EM wave weighted by 1/(E-hω), where E is the energy of the particle-hole pair. So even though hω is not exactly equal to or that close to any E, there is still a considerable contribution to the dielectric function. Even in the classical electrodynamical picture the electrons move when the EM wave moves through the solid and generate small oscillating charge displacements.

So to conclude: Normally electron-hole pairs are considered static solutions when no field is present. The light-matter photons/polaritons are dynamical solutions when an external field is present and can be approximated by an infinite series in the static solutions.

I didn't like the Kittel book, and we used this Steve Simon book for my solid state course at Uni.
It's one of the funniest textbooks I've ever had, actually. Lots of little comedic asides.

However, he also has basically the whole book on his website for free anyway (with some errors that are resolved in the printed version)

If I were you, I would study from Purcell (Berkeley physics course volume number 2). https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026 This is the best to begin with. And DO all the problems! After that if you still want better understanding, Griffiths - Introduction to electrodynamics is very good. Do not touch Feynman or Landau until you complete those 2, they are very bad for beginers but after you are familiar with the subject they are true gems.

I am using Griffiths too, but I am supplementing it with this, which I've actually been finding really helpful.

I thought this book moved at a good pace and covered the history well (discoveries and political/practical consqeuence).

​

https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Universe-Shocking-Story-Electricity/dp/0316729728

Brush up on mathematical methods for physics. Learn Linear Algebra, Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus, Complex Analysis, and Tensor Analysis. A good book would be this: http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Sciences-Mary/dp/0471198269/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Classical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Third-Course-Theoretical-Physics/dp/0750628960/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291625026&sr=1-7

E&M: http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Fields-Roald-K-Wangsness/dp/0471811866/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
or http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-3rd-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291625100&sr=1-1

Statistical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Statistical-Thermal-Physics-Frederick/dp/1577666127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291625184&sr=1-1

Quantum Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-R-Shankar/dp/0306447908/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291625261&sr=1-4

The other well known book is ashcroft and mermin http://www.amazon.com/Solid-State-Physics-Neil-Ashcroft/dp/0030839939 which has better reviews but still isn't regarded as amazing or anything

http://www.amazon.com/The-Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0PR4FET4HSKRNNR4Z1AR seems promising by the reviews.

Books! Quantum mechanics in a nutshell or Quantum field theory in a nutshell

<3 Merry Christmas.

You are in luck, as I did two theses about a specific Renormalization Group method ("The Functional Renormalization Group") and discussed two simple model systems with it. Since the RG is a very broad topic with a lot of different implementations (Numerical RG, Perturbative RG, Functional RG and a whole lot others I can't recall) here are some useful papers/books to give an overview.

• Delamotte: Am.J.Phys. 72, 2004, 170-184 - "A Hint Of Renormalization"
  
• Fisher: Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 70, No. 2, April 1998 - "Renormalization group theory: Its basis and formulation in statistical physics"
  
• Zinn-Justin: Phase Transitions and Renormalization Group
  

A couple common undergrad/early grad texts are Marder and Ashcroft and Mermin . Try and read some review articles about some of the topics you hear about. This is an interesting article about the unique perspective of cond matter and why it might be important

Zapped by Bob Berman.. Really enjoyed this one.

For EPR i have always liked N. M. Atherton, see here https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electron-Resonance-Physical-Chemistry/dp/0137217625


Bit havy on the bra-ket notation, but well written

Schaum's Outlines!


I checked out the physical copy at my Uni library in addition to using their (free) digital access to the pdf.
I got an A in the course using this for problems, I highly recommend it (also available for many other subjects, too!)

edit: formatting

Some textbooks are good, some are bad. I was once so furious with how bad my textbook was (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Solid-Physics-Charles-Kittel/dp/047141526X), that I collected a list of bad reviews to share with my professor. Read some of the reviews, it's cathartic.

Anyway, despite that experience I still think textbooks are good. They have always been my primary learning tool throughout school. Yes I've used the internet for help with specific problems and questions, but I don't think absorbing the core principles of subject works as well through the internet.

A good textbook is a highly polished document with information presented in an order that should allow for a natural progression. Most online sources of knowledge do not start "at the beginning" or reach "the end."

Also textbooks are self consistent, so you won't experience changes in notation from chapter to chapter, whereas if you skip from one yt vid to another you might suffer a delay due to the two creators using different approaches / notation.

I'd recommend Steven Simon's Oxford Solid State Basics. https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779

Used it in parallel with Kittel.

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If you are looking for a E & M textbook, I would absolutely recommend Electricity and Magnetism by Purcell (https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517530006&sr=8-1&keywords=electricity+and+magnetism).

I recommend Marder It assumes undergraduate knowledge of CM, EM, QM, SM and builds on that. It's also quite hefty, but I think he gives a chapter plan.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452248730&sr=1-2

https://www.amazon.com/Vibrations-Waves-P-French/dp/8123909144

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-03sc-physics-iii-vibrations-and-waves-fall-2016/resource-index/

Purcell: http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026

I don't know how you're this uninformed. Read both these books and tell me which one is harder.

• Computers
  
  
• Cars

electricity and magnetism by purcell and morin

edit: as a counter to the griffiths suggestion, i have read good things about modern electrodynamics by zangwill, but i have no personal experience with the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779 It's a fairly inexpensive book no matter the currency

We used this: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Solid-Physics-Charles-Kittel/dp/047141526X (the older editions are dirt cheap). But I know a lot of people hate on it.

There was a thread discussing other options a while ago, I'll try to find it.