HACKER Q&A
📣 rramadass

Expository/Succinct Books on Modern Physics


What are some good books which give an overview of all of Modern Physics (or even better, all of Physics)? Mathematical rigour is fine as long as they are clear and starting from undergrad level. Books for each of the quadrants mentioned here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_physics

I have my eye on John Dirk Walecka's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dirk_Walecka) books which seem pretty good particularly the ones published by World Scientific Publishing. Three vols on Introduction, Advanced, Topics on Modern Physics and Introduction vols on Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, Electricity & Magnetism, General Relativity. - https://www.worldscientific.com/author/Walecka%2C+John+Dirk?PubType=book&startPage=&target=bookTitleSearch&content=bookTitle

Dover has Robert Sproull's Modern Physics which seems a bit old. - https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486783260

Springer has S.H.Patil's Elements of Modern Physics which seems up to date. - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70143-7

Does anybody have experience with these books both studying and teaching from? I would appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks here can shed some light on this.

What other books provide similar overview of the domain?

Also suggestions on books which provide the needed background Mathematics.

PS: I am finding the the old Soviet era book Fundamentals of Physics by Ivanov quite useful to get an overview - https://mirtitles.org/2018/04/21/fundamentals-of-physics-ivanov/

  👤 OgsyedIE Accepted Answer ✓
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.

👤 senorcrab
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

👤 timthorn
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.
👤 QuadmasterXLII
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.
👤 vittore
I think I used this exact Ivanov book (but in Russian) in school and quite liked it.
👤 egghack
David Tong's textbooks which are based on lecture notes he made public: https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/books.html