Edward M. Purcell
Publisher: Reverte
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 1986
This book must have been a work of love. The reader of it who fails to fall in love with electromagnetism would better change his direction of study, as he will not find anything better, including the marvellous Feynman's "Lectures on Physics". Following a more-or-less historical approach, except for the early use of relativity, the author strives to get the results from a full understanding of the physical situation. This is obtained by the use of very clever intuitive models. After that comes the mathematics, rendered natural and welcome. An outstanding example is the treatment of polarization of a dielectric sphere, where most of the physics is derived from a drawing! Another feature, to be found only in books written by great physicists, is the ability of stretching the argument up to its limit, getting results we wouldn't think possible with so little formalism. Problems are extremely good and real. The drawings, done by the author himself (so I read some! where) are very beautiful and helpful. Some of the exercises are of numerical character, motivating the use of computers. After meeting this book I could never teach introductory electromagnetism from another text. The author, Edward Purcell, is a Nobel prize winner who discovered, among many other things, nuclear magnetic resonance.
http://ifile.it/mtqk8fh
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 1986
This book must have been a work of love. The reader of it who fails to fall in love with electromagnetism would better change his direction of study, as he will not find anything better, including the marvellous Feynman's "Lectures on Physics". Following a more-or-less historical approach, except for the early use of relativity, the author strives to get the results from a full understanding of the physical situation. This is obtained by the use of very clever intuitive models. After that comes the mathematics, rendered natural and welcome. An outstanding example is the treatment of polarization of a dielectric sphere, where most of the physics is derived from a drawing! Another feature, to be found only in books written by great physicists, is the ability of stretching the argument up to its limit, getting results we wouldn't think possible with so little formalism. Problems are extremely good and real. The drawings, done by the author himself (so I read some! where) are very beautiful and helpful. Some of the exercises are of numerical character, motivating the use of computers. After meeting this book I could never teach introductory electromagnetism from another text. The author, Edward Purcell, is a Nobel prize winner who discovered, among many other things, nuclear magnetic resonance.
http://ifile.it/mtqk8fh