Customer Reviews

Electromagnetism

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this book for a 2 semester course in E&M. I absolutely hated it for the first semester, but it's merits became apparent during the second semester. The treatment of statics is inadequate at best, but Pollack and Stump do a great job from the chapter on Maxwell's equations on. The chapter on relativity and tensors alone makes this book a worthwhile buy. I would suggest using Griffith's for statics and Pollack and Stump for dynamics, but given the cost of both books thats probably going to be an expensive proposition.

The authors achieved a very interesting balance between the mathematical level and the introductory nature of the book (if you don't already master the math, you will have to learn it in order to understand the text... which is good). It has a good number of worked out examples, and the problems are challenging without being unsolvable. One characteristic of these is that they require a good comprehension of the material and therefore, you will not go on to the next chapter without learning the material (hopefully). The structure of the book is pretty much standard. Mathematically, the book is not self-contained, but that does not affect my rating because it is not intended to be. With a good foundation (or book) in vector calculus and maybe a more elementary book in E&M (Griffiths? Yeah, I agree with a previous reviewer that it might be an expensive proposition), you will be more than ready to learn E&M.

Whether you are a student in engineering or physics field, you should get this book. The author is terrific in explaining things. It's complete and to-the-point. After reading this book, not only would your understanding of E/M increase tenfold, your mathematical ability strengthens along with it too!

This book is not really for 100% beginner. You must be rather well versed in vector calculus.

My only complaint about this book is that only about 3 pages are devoted to discussing numerical methods, which is not sufficient from my point of view. Despite this shortcoming, THIS BOOK IS BY FAR THE BEST!!! Buy it with Griffith's book, this is ALL you'll ever need to learn E/M!!

Goes into much more detail than other undergraduate E&M texts, so it will never leave you hanging on the math. Discussion is also extremely clear and easy to follow. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is taking an undergraduate E&M course.

I love this book, and I don't really like electromagnetism. Pollack and Stump use an easily understood writing style that is concise, thorough, and occasionally witty. Their use of extensive examples is great for the visual learner. This book covers a full academic year's worth of advanced electricity and magnetism courses.