Customer Reviews

Electromagnetic Fields and Interactions (Blaisdell Book in the Pure and Applied Sciences.)

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Yes, this is the result of a research by Gerald Holton, the great science historian from Harvard. This is the latest rendition of the famous Abraham-Becker, which, in turn, descended from the text by Foppl, where Einstein scribbled his doubts. A great book for anyone, though. Crisp, conceptually very sound. Great discussion, and elegant use of the Helmholtz theorem on vector fields ("if you know the Div and the Curl, you know everything"). Very good treatment of relativistic electromagnetism, perhaps the best, very concrete and tied to experiments. Becker was a great science writer. In this Dover edition you get the bonus of Becker's lectures on Quantum Mechanics, very valuable by themselves. I love this book, and have taught from it many times.

In my opinion, this is one of the best books ever written on the electromagnetic theory and on the theoretical and experimental basis of the special theory of realtivity. The part on the quantum theory mantains the same high standard of the first part, which derives from the well known "Theorie der Electrizitat".

The interplay between theory and experiment, the clarity of the mathematical proofs, even the simple drawings that help in understanding some mathematical points, are at the highest level. This is one of the unfrequent cases in which the notion of "classical" applies in a full fashion. I would recommend this book to all those who wish to undertake, at a University level, the study of the fundamentals of theoretical physics.

I love this book too. You can take it with you to a remote island and totally digest Maxwell and Dirac without need for any other books. Very self contained and clearly written. It's a keeper.