It's going to be a very busy day, in ways that will keep me away from the Internet for most of the day, so you'll need to entertain yourselves. Here's a question for the science-minded:
What's your favorite science textbook of all time?
It could be your favorite book from when you were a student, or it could be your favorite book to teach out of, but if you've got a favorite textbook, leave the name in the comments. Obviously, my expertise in dealing with textbooks is mostly in physics, but I'll throw this open to all sciences, so go ahead and nominate that biology book you can't get enough of.
What's my answer?
I haven't done this as a dorky poll before now because I find it a really tough question. I don't really recall ever liking any of my textbooks all that much, and I haven't been hugely enthusiastic about any of the books I've taught from.
Probably the best book I've taught out of is Hecht's Optics. It's certainly the book I've stuck closest to in planning my lectures. The coverage is pretty comprehensive, and the explanations are both clear and detailed. It's a little dry, but it's the first place I turn if I need information about anything in optics.
On the student side... that's a tough one. I got a good bit of use out of Baym's quantum mechanics book, when I was studying for the Ph.D. qualifier (and as a bonus it was a cheap paperback edition), but it's a little odd in some places. I never really took a class out of Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics, but it's been extremely useful to me over the years. David Park's quantum mechanics book is surprisingly readable, and the source of my very favorite elision ("A few minutes' thought will show that..."), but I'm not sure I'd call it the best textbook ever.
Just to pick something, I'll go with Bairlein's book on classical mechanics. It was the text for a tutorial class I took as an undergrad, and to the extent that I know anything at all about Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, I learned it from reading that book.
So, what's your favorite? Please don't comment here about books that you hated-- there'll be a separate post for that.
Comments
# 1 | Stephen | January 23, 2007 11:05 AM
Apart from Halliday and Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics (Extended third edition), an intro text which I still reference in grad school, I would have to say my favorite is Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics. Sure he's wordy, but he's descriptive. I found it easier to construct thought experiments in quantum mechanics after this text, and his mathematical approach seems...playful? Maybe it's just me, maybe it's the prof who taught it, but the big red book still sits by my desk.
# 2 | Mike S | January 23, 2007 11:22 AM
Griffiths Intro Electrodynamics is the best physics book I have ever used. I learned more Calc from that than from my math classes, and it has those handy tables in the front and back.
# 3 | Ben M | January 23, 2007 11:31 AM
I'll second the vote for Hecht. Also: Griffiths' "Introduction to elementary particles" and Shankar's "Basic Training in Mathematics: A Fitness Program for Science Student", a top-notch freshman/sophomore-level text covering calculus, differential equations, analysis, and linear algebra.
# 4 | UndergradChemist | January 23, 2007 11:43 AM
I'll second Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics. I found it really readable and enjoyable, and he leaves nothing for granted.
For biology, I must say that my favorite is "Evolutionary Dynamics" by Martin Nowak. It's not a particularly thorough or rigorous treatment of the subject, but it's so easy and interesting at the same time that it doesn't really feel like a textbook at all.
# 5 | yagwara | January 23, 2007 12:47 PM
Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics. I have never done any thermal physics before or since, but it transformed a dreary required course into something magical (for me anyway).
Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism. I didn't appreciate how good this book was until I saw what a cockup every other author has made of the subject.
Misner Thorne and Wheeler. That one is more love-hate.
# 6 | thm | January 23, 2007 12:55 PM
I like some of the physics texts mentioned, but hands down, far-and-away the best science textbook I've had--if I'm allowed to include math--is Michael Spivak's Calculus. In contrast to the cookbook approach of most calculus texts, it really serves as an introduction to the way mathematics is done. It's reasonably priced, and not filled with useless clip-art.
Most importantly, because it nominally covers the same material that most high-school texts cover, but in a completely different way, it serves as a good equalizer for first year college students--no matter how good your high school calculus was, you can probably learn something from Spivak.
# 7 | yagwara | January 23, 2007 1:17 PM
thm:
Yeah, Spivak was the first thing that came to my mind. But I decided it wasn't fair game.
# 8 | Sean D | January 23, 2007 1:27 PM
I'm glad to hear that there are other Shankar fans out there - I found it the best of a mediocre lot.
My favorite books actually have been on more advanced topcs. Hartle's Gravity is an amazingly readible text on general relativity. He builds the subject up from the basics of special relativity and has lots of good, clear examples along the way. It made the process of learning something about GR much less painful than I expected. Another fav has been Nielsen and Chuang's Quantum Computations and Quantum Information, both for its accessibility and the breadth of topics that it covers.
# 9 | Ponder Stibbons | January 23, 2007 2:52 PM
Kleppner/Kolenkow: Introduction to Mechanics
Spivak: Calculus on Manifolds
Riley/Hobson/Bence: Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering
# 10 | Rob Knop | January 23, 2007 3:51 PM
At the moment, I'm very fond of Hartle's GR book. However, I'm teaching a class out of it right now, so it's probably a situational thing.
I have long quoted Osterbrock's Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nebulae as my favorite text, and while I don't own it yet, from what I've seen at conferences, the new edition by Ferland & Osterbrock looks even better. But is it really my favorite text? Dunno.
My favorite textbook is the intro astronomy text I'm going to write... someday.
# 11 | anonymous | January 23, 2007 5:46 PM
I have to agree with Hecht (though I'm not sure how much of this is a result of my affinity towards the topic). Couldn't ask for more from a physics (both theory and applied) standpoint.
# 12 | Craig | January 23, 2007 5:58 PM
My sentimental favorite is Christman's Fundamentals of Soild State Physics, with it's bright red cover and differently-named variables from the rest of the field. And the afroementioned Griffith's E+M book. More recently in grad school, I've learned to love Ibach and Luth's Solid State Physics, and Eisberg and Resnick's Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. There's also Davies' The Physics of Low-Dimensional Semiconductors, Bevington and Robinson's Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences, Bauer and Richter's Optical Characterization of Epitaxial Semiconductor Layers, and... God, I'm a dork.
# 13 | Colin | January 23, 2007 8:07 PM
I have to agree about Hartle's GR book. I have a normal copy and a photocopied draft version from when I took the class from him. It really helped me in grad level GR plus I got $0.25 for each mistake I found in the draft (I think I got 2 or 3 bucks for laundry money that quarter).
Also, I hated it at the time, but Kleppner/Kolenkow made upper division mechanics much easier for me.
# 14 | Ryan | January 23, 2007 8:15 PM
My vote goes to Halliday and Resnick. Sure, it's intro level, but it covers so much so well that I still refer back to it from time to time.
# 15 | Pseudonym | January 23, 2007 9:45 PM
I don't think you can beat the Feynman lectures.
# 16 | David Phillips | January 23, 2007 9:47 PM
Since no one has mentioned Feynman's books, I'll sing his praises today. While I would have hated to have taken the original class with the books, they're great for reference. When I couldn't figure out what Clebsch-Gordon coefficients were from Gasiorowicz, Feynman came to the rescue. When I was trying to understand how a SQUID worked, Feyman came to the rescue. The discussions of the ammonium maser and how thunderclouds work are great. The stories are also lovely.
I'd also vote for Ryder's Quantum Field Theory book. When I was taking quantum field theory, I found it more understandable than the other books that were recommended. Despite complaints from some serious field theory jocks, it was perfect for me.
# 17 | Brad Holden | January 23, 2007 10:09 PM
I will give another vote for Griffith's E+M text. E+M was my favorite undergraduate subject, despite two different lecturers.
For grad level, I did not like any of the physics books I used, but I will certainly give a big yes vote to Binney & Tremaine's Galactic Dynamics. I would say it is also the book that I use the most since getting my Ph.D., which tells you it's influence on me.
# 18 | Chad Orzel | January 23, 2007 10:15 PM
The problem with the Feynman lectures was nailed by one of the QM profs I had in grad school, who said (paraphrased slightly:
"The problem with Feynman is you read it, and you say 'Yes! I understand this! I'm doing physics!' And then you try to solve a problem, and you find that, well, that you're not Feynman."
I haven't made extensive use of them, but every now and then, I look at his lectures, and there's some nice stuff there. But it's good in a really quirky sort of way, that you pretty much have to be Feynman to pull off, particularly in a class context.
# 19 | Sujit | January 23, 2007 11:34 PM
My personal favorites have been...
-Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics
-Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism
-Eisberg and Resnick, Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles
-Hecht, Optics
And one slightly unconventional book,
-A. R. Choudhuri, The Physics of Fluids and Plasma
# 20 | Sujit | January 23, 2007 11:37 PM
Ooh, I also want to plug Chandler's Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics, even if it's written by *shudder* a chemist.
# 21 | Thomas S. | January 23, 2007 11:58 PM
Is this an undergrad-text only thread? In that case, I agree that the Feynman lectures and the Griffiths E&M are my hands-down favorites. However, I find the graduate textbooks to by oodles more fun, Jackson excepted...
# 22 | JC | January 24, 2007 12:28 AM
One of my favorite non-science textbooks (if it could be called that), would be "The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature of Mass Movements" by Eric Hoffer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer
I haven't heard many instructors using it these days on a reading list.
# 23 | Bill LaLonde | January 24, 2007 7:30 AM
I'll put in another vote for Halliday and Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics (Extended third edition).
# 24 | James Graber | January 24, 2007 9:25 AM
All time favorite definitely the Feynman lectures.
Number two Weinberg's "Gravitation and Cosmology".
These two were love at first sight.
Number three now MTW. I used to hate it, now I love it.
It took awhile to develop a good relationship with this book. The second half is a lot better than the first.
Finally Jackson, perhaps the highest quality of them all.
More than forty years later, these are the only textbooks I still use regularly.
Jim Graber
# 25 | Opiwan | January 24, 2007 9:45 AM
Kingery, Bowman, and Uhlman: Introduction to Ceramics
We ceramists call it "The Bible" for a reason!
(for the record, this is for engineering ceramics, not making pottery at home or something like that)
# 26 | Blake Stacey | January 24, 2007 9:55 AM
On the first day of my E&M class, my professor held up a copy of the Feynman Lectures, Volume II, and said something like the following: "This is a great book to read, but you can't learn E&M for the first time out of it." Which I found kind of odd, actually, because I had learned vector calculus out of it the summer before. If I hadn't had a day job and other such drains on my time, I'm sure I could have learned more. I know I don't have a Feynman-caliber brain, but I can't recall having any trouble learning stuff from the "red books" and applying it.
Now that the "definitive edition" has come out, with a fourth volume entirely devoted to problem-solving, I wonder if the perception of the Feynman Lectures will change.
# 27 | Dennis | January 24, 2007 10:09 AM
My favorite is an organic chemistry textbook by Morrison and Boyd. It's pretty comprehensive, straightforward and easy to read, and also has a sense of humor - in the section where enantiomers are introduced, there's a bit where they say something like:
"Everything has a mirror image (except for vampires) but many molecules' mirror images are superimposable..."
How many science texts mention vampires?
# 28 | John B | January 24, 2007 2:05 PM
My favorites, which are a bit all over the map:
Principles of Neuroscience, Kandel & Schwartz
Descriptive Physical Oceanography, Pickard & Emery
Evolution, Futuyma
Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, Carroll
Invertebrate Zoology, Ruppert & Barnes
Human Anatomy & Physiology, Marieb
# 29 | RJ | January 24, 2007 8:11 PM
My choice is definitely Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths. The difference between this and most other intermediate/advanced books is that the text actually explains how to solve problems.
# 30 | Eric Johnson | January 25, 2007 9:55 AM
I commented in the 'least favorite text' thread, not realizing there were two separate threads. I have quite a few more favorite texts than hated ones.
I mentioned in the other thread that I like anything by Griffiths. Feynman's lectures are infinitely more valuable after you have learned a subject. Every time I feel like a have a good grasp of a topic, I go and see how Feynman explains it in his Lectures and then everything kind of falls into place, and I realize how little I understood before. And Landau is a master, although I haven't worked through any of his texts as thoroughly as I went through Mechanics. For me, Schutz did the same thing for GR (A First Course in GR) that Griffiths did for E&M. And for the math, I don't think you can beat Shilov's trilogy (Linear Algebra, Real & Complex Analysis, and Functional Analysis - all Dover reprints) and Byron & Fuller's Mathematics of Classical & Quantum Physics (also a Dover). My graduate experience is not very broad and was a bit abbreviated, but I really enjoyed Schwinger (et al)'s Classical Electrodynamics (unlike Jackson, you can actually venture in without Sherpa guides), Goldstein, and Peskin & Schroeder (as far as I got).
All in all, I'd say that we suffer from an embarrassment of riches when it comes to good physics textbooks (with the one glaring exception of SM - why is that?), although not all professors take the time to cull out the bad ones from their required book lists. As somebody else mentioned in the other thread, finding a text that speaks to you is a very subjective thing, and students should be advised early on that the best way to survive in a field like this is to learn their way around the literature, starting with textbooks. I think part of the problem is that many students feel constrained to stick with the texts their professors have assigned, and don't feel free to explore other texts, either because of a lack of time or fear that they won't learn the necessary tricks/problems that will allow them to pass tests, etc. The truth is that they would be much better served, even in the short run, abandoning a text that they just don't get for one that really resonates with them. Here I'm talking about the kind of 'not getting it' where you understand all of the steps, can solve the same problems the text does, but don't have a 'feel' for what you're really doing, and therefore can't extend what you've learned to different situations.
I must say I really enjoy this blog, especially when the topics don't stray far from the physics.
# 31 | chris | January 25, 2007 4:36 PM
Undergrad, Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism: the book that made me want to be a physicist.
Grad school, Sakurai, Advanced Quantum Mechanics: everybody else makes field theory look sooo obscure and complicated, including the book that my AQM professor was using.
As a teacher: Loudon, the Quantum Theory of Light: Best discussion I know of of the Hanbury Brown Twiss effect and lots more.
I'd also like to make a plug for a book I never hear anybody talk about: Peebles, Quantum Mechanics. But I'm prejudiced because I had the man himself as a lecturer and read the original mimeographs.
I love the Feynman Lectures, but as someone already said, most of us are not Feynman and so I find I can only use it as a supplement. It makes imaginations soar though.
# 32 | Bob Oldendorf | January 26, 2007 12:46 AM
Another vote for Halliday and Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics. (I forget which edition, but it was the last one to be hand-copied by monks onto papyrus scrolls.)
# 33 | Bill Tozier | January 26, 2007 7:38 PM
Molecular Biology of the Cell, by Alberts et al. hands down. Must be on it's fifteenth edition by now; I learned from the Big Black Third. Back in the day, all of us who were serious -- professors and graduate students -- read the entire thing, cover to cover, every couple of years. Seriously.
And besides, no need to apologize for non-physics books. As Per Bak once made clear to me, it's all physics, in the end....
# 34 | anon | January 26, 2007 8:21 PM
Since no one's mentioned them so far, either of Goodman's books -- Fourier Optics, original edition, or Statistical Optics. Clear, well written books.
Anon