Customer Reviews

Elementary Excitations in Solids : Lectures on Phonons, Electrons, and Plasmons (Advanced Book Classics)

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A gem of scientific literature, Elementary Excitations in Solids is organized, well thought out, and readable. Pines mixes experimental evidence with theoretical models in way that reminds the reader we are doing science not just math or experimental engineering. I recommend this book to any one who is learning condensed matter theory and wants to sit back some weekend afternoon, kick back, and enjoy a brisk but insightful presentation of phonons and plasmons. This book is truly a classic!

I first read this book as a graduate student and I found it somewhat helpful. But this book is really rather short and does not have much more in it than a review article. For those who do not have access to a research library and want to get an idea what plasmons are about, this might be a place to start. At the very least it is fair to say that David Pines was all about plasmons. It was said that at University of Illinois every course he taught ended up being about plasmons. This was true to such an extent that one of my friends who was a grad student studying high-energy physics at Illinois claimed (in jest!) that he chose his field over solid state physics because "I took the introductory solid state physics course from Professor Pines and discovered that solids state physics was only about plasmons--a topic which I did not find all that interesting". Well, if you do find plasmons to be an interesting topic, you would do better to buy Pines and NozieresThe Theory of Quatum Liquids, which is a much more complete treatment.