Don't let lecture notes rot

Last week Nature Physics published an op-ed titled "Don't Let Lecture Notes Rot" (vol. 16, p. 1167).  It makes the case for physicists to make their lecture notes available more broadly than for just their own students, particularly in advanced courses where an individualistic perspective can be appreciated by students and even other faculty worldwide.  The op-ed also discusses some of the logistical issues involved in making such notes both available and findable. 

As an example of making lecture notes available, Springer's 50-year old series, Lecture Notes in Physics, long predates the internet, but still seems to be going strong; it is accompanied by their series Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics, which seems to be about 10 years old.  During my graduate research in physics in the late 1990s, there were two particularly useful volumes of LNP that I relied on and cited in my dissertation.  Nowadays, individual professors can simply post their course notes on their personal websites, though they may need encouraging from their colleagues and students, and perhaps university department heads.  

One of the mechanisms discussed for making the most interesting or useful lecture notes findable is for faculty to share annotated reading lists or reference lists.  These often appear in course syllabi, though I agree with the op-ed that some annotation would make these lists even more useful.  I think this principle applies even more broadly.  For instance, I have never taught an upper level physics course, but I can certainly share some books that I found useful as I was studying physics, in the spirit of helping others navigate the landscape of learning materials.  However, bear in mind that my experience dates from the late 1990s, and I am unfamiliar with more recent literature in the field, as well as online offerings such as the MIT OpenCourseware mentioned in the op-ed.

Here I will focus on three standard subjects:  classical mechanics, classical electromagnetic theory, and thermodynamics & statistical physics.  I will also discuss a nonstandard one, fluid dynamics.  Let me start by saying that in retrospect, the textbooks assigned for my undergraduate courses in these topics did not suit me at all.  It wasn't until graduate school that I expanded my reach to a serious study of texts other than those I was assigned, particularly when I was studying for the qualifying exams.  So, the discussion below focuses particularly on books I consulted heavily during those studies.  Of greatest interest are books that have a good balance of theory and solved problems.

For undergraduate classical mechanics, my hands-down favorite must be Marion & Thornton's Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, a book almost ideally suited for preparing for the qualifying exams.  I also occasionally consulted Symon's Mechanics, whose chapter on gravitation includes a vector field theory/PDE formulation of classical gravity not found in Marion & Thornton.  Symon also briefly discusses fluid dynamics and acoustics, topics absent from Marion & Thornton.  At the graduate level, I must confess I am not a fan of Goldstein's Classical Mechanics.  Were I to revisit theoretical mechanics, I would take a look at Fetter & Walecka's Theoretical Mechanics of Particles and Continua, Scheck's Mechanics:  From Newton's Laws to Deterministic Chaos, and a little book by Leech, Classical Mechanics.

For electromagnetic theory, my clear favorite is Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, which in my view is at the pinnacle of undergraduate physics textbooks.  I regret that I did not encounter the book until my first year in graduate school, but it too is ideal preparation for the qualifiers.  Griffiths does not dwell much on electrical circuits though, so I supplemented it with Electromagnetic Fields and Waves, by Lorrain, Corson, & Lorrain.  A backup reference was Nayfeh & Brussel's Electricity and Magnetism.  Finally, as an example of alternate perspectives discussed in the Nature Physics op-ed, Schwartz's Principles of Electrodynamics puts special relativity at the heart of its development of the theory, making Maxwell's equations seem much more natural than the conventional presentations do.  I hope that all physics students get exposed to Schwartz's approach at some point in their learning careers.  Another alternate perspective is presented in Kovetz's Electromagnetic Theory, which includes integrated discussion of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, topics not often found in undergrad E&M.  A bridge to graduate level books like Jackson's nerve-wracking Classical Electrodynamics could be Heald & Marion's Classical Electromagnetic Radiation.

Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics by Greiner, Neise, and Stocker, part of Greiner's Classical Theoretical Physics series, is a superb qualifying exam study resource for those topics.  When I actually took graduate level statistical physics, I found Statistical Mechanics:  An Advanced Course with Problems and Solutions, by Kubo, Ichimura, Usui, and Hashitsume, a superb backup resource.  There are many other books I would look at were I to revisit thermal/statistical physics, but one worth mentioning is Reichl's A Modern Course in Statistical Physics, which includes coverage of nonequilibrium phenomena.

A physicist should begin the study of fluid dynamics with the two chapters on it in the Feynman Lectures on Physics.  The main text I learned fluid dynamics from was the first edition of Fluid Mechanics by Pijush K. Kundu.  It is an exceptional choice, one that I would highly recommend to others.  This is a field blessed with many fine books.  I found particularly useful the following:

• Aris, Vectors, Tensors, and the Basic Equations of Fluid Mechanics, a major source for Kundu's presentation of the derivation of the Navier-Stokes equations.
  
• Choudhuri, The Physics of Fluids and Plasmas:  An Introduction for Astrophysicists, which makes connections with the kinetic theory of gases, plasma physics, and magnetohydrodynamics.
• Tritton, Physical Fluid Dynamics, very much an experimentalist's perspective.
  

The list of fluid dynamics books I would consult were I to return to the field is too long to outline here.  I will just mention Batchelor's An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics, Falkovich's Fluid Mechanics:  A Short Course for Physicists, Guyon et al.'s Physical Hydrodynamics, Panton's Incompressible Flow, and Yih's Fluid Mechanics:  A Concise Introduction to the Theory.

I will end with a few other miscellaneous books I found useful in my studies:  Optics, by Hecht; Optical Properties of Solids, by Fox; Waves, by Crawford (part of the Berkeley Physics Course); Group Theory in Physics, by Tung; Physical Chemistry, by Atkins; Giant Molecules:  Here, There, and Everywhere..., by Grosberg & Khokhlov; and naturally the Landau & Lifshitz Course of Theoretical Physics.