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Title: Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. II by Edward M. Purcell ISBN: 0-07-004908-4 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $103.44 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.03 (32 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but flawed.
Comment: This is a (very heavily mathematical) introduction to the physics of Electricity and Magnetism. Although it has some strong points (It takes the time to explain the math behind div, curl, etc. and some of the problems are rather neat), it also has its weaknesses. First and foremost, the problems are almost universally without solution, except for a select few whose numerical answer are written below the problem. Combine this with the almost total dearth of examples, and you have a pretty serious problem for anyone trying to learn the material on their own. The sections themselves are also sometimes rather poorly explained. Chapters 5(explaining magnetism as the relativistic effect of moving charge) and 10 (dielectrics) are both fairly confusing and hard to understand. At times I found myself begging Purcell to include one, just one little measly example that could possibly make more sense than his pages and pages of writing. Once or twice I found myself not noticing that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of a facet of the material, just because no example or solution in the book provided a counterexample to my way of thinking.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not Bad At All...
Comment: Purcell's book is an excellent introduction to E&M that should be intelligible to all freshman physics majors. If you haven't had vector calculus yet, its no problem because Purcell explains div, grad, and curl better than most math books.
The book has some problems (as many other reviewers point out), but they are not devestating. Yes, the use of cgs units can be annoying at times, but if you really understand the physics behind the formulas, doing SI problems in another text is not all that bad.
Yes, there is a major lack of examples, and many of the end-of-chapter problems are hard. If you're trying to teach yourself from this book and there's no TA to help, I imagine it could be frustrating. My advice is to stick with Purcell even if its tough going (no one said E&M was easy) and do one of two things. You can either buy another introductory text (I like Young and Freedman, University Physics) or (the cheaper alternative) go to the MIT, UC Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, etc. web sites and find solutions to many of the problems in this book. Just go to the physics home page and look for the introductory honors E&M class...all the universities that offer such a class use this book. It is the standard because there is no intro E&M text that goes this deep.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must Have Introductory Text
Comment: I had the pleasure of using this book for my Honors Electricity and Magnetism class at Cornell. It was my second semester taking physics and I must say I really had a blast with that class, thanks to our professor Richard Galick second semester E&M will be one of my most memorable classes. Do not be misled by my enjoyment of the class, the homework exercises from this book were mostly all VERY CHALLENGING. I really I appreciated that Purcell takes the time in this book to thoroughly explain Physics (not Math which is just a tool used to wok on Physics), and doesn't waste so much time working out through endless formulas that don't get you any where; as our professor used to say "Let the Physics drive the Math, not the other way around".
The only thing I don't like about this book is that it mostly all done in cgs units instead of SI. If you are a Physicist you'll find out how useful (for simplification reasons) this could be but if you are an Electrical Engineer like me it doesn't really help much.
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Title: An Introduction To Mechanics by Daniel. Kleppner, Robert J. Kolenkow ISBN: 0070350485 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Pub. Date: 01 March, 1973 List Price(USD): $104.37 |
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Title: Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus by Harry M. Schey ISBN: 0393969975 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Feynman Lectures On Physics (3 Volume Set) by Richard Phillips Feynman ISBN: 0201021153 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: June, 1970 List Price(USD): $101.10 |
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Title: Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, 2nd Edition by Mary L. Boas ISBN: 0471044091 Publisher: Wiley Text Books Pub. Date: 06 April, 1983 List Price(USD): $102.95 |
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Title: Introduction to Electrodynamics (3rd Edition) by David J. Griffiths ISBN: 013805326X Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 30 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $108.00 |
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