Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Fourth Edition [Hardcover]

George B. Arfken (Author), Hans J. Weber (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0120598159 | ISBN-13: 978-0120598151 | Publication Date: October 4, 1995 | Edition: 4

This new and completely revised Fourth Edition provides thorough coverage of the important mathematics needed for upper-division and graduate study in physics and engineering. Following more than 28 years of successful class-testing, Mathematical Methods for Physicists is considered the standard text on the subject.
A new chapter on nonlinear methods and chaos is included, as are revisions of the differential equations and complex variables chapters. The entire book has been made even more accessible, with special attention given to clarity, completeness, and physical motivation. It is an excellent reference apart from its course use.

This revised Fourth Edition includes:
Modernized terminology
Group theoretic methods brought together and expanded in a new chapter
An entirely new chapter on nonlinear mathematical physics
Significant revisions of the differential equations and complex variables chapters
Many new or improved exercises
Forty new or improved figures
An update of computational techniques for today's contemporary tools, such as microcomputers, Numerical Recipes, and Mathematica(r), among others

Editorial Reviews

Review

Many instructors have considered the 3rd edition, which has Arfken as the sole author, to be the best available compendium of the mathematics required for advanced study in science and engineering. Overall, this reviewer finds that the 4th edition is a significant improvement over the 3rd and enthusiastically recommends the 4th edition for both reference and classroom use.
--AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICS

Book Description

More that 90,000 copies sold! --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1029 pages
• Publisher: Academic Press; 4 edition (October 4, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0120598159
• ISBN-13: 978-0120598151
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #871,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why Is This Textbook So Widely Used?, November 13, 2006

By 

Robert Evans (Dallas, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Sixth Edition: A Comprehensive Guide (Hardcover)

I am a graduate physics student with a strong mathematical background. This is the textbook used for our 2 semester course in mathematical methods for physics. The book is massive, both in content and physical weight. The cover is attractive and the printing seems to be fairly high quality. Now comes the difficult part of the review: finding other positive comments. First of all, I have only used a few chapters of the book thus far, so my comments pertain only to those. Some difficulties I have found... There are no answers to any exercises making the book fairly useless for self-study. The material is very uneven, as if each section was written by a different author (graduate student?). The explanations and examples are mediocre at best (contrast with the Mary Boas book). There are MANY typos - what ever happened to proof reading? The class INSTRUCTOR doesn't like the book, but is forced to use it by the department, and has regularly emailed the authors with corrections and recommendations. None of the students in the class like the book. You may be forced to use this book, but I would recommend other books as supplements (e.g., the book by Mary Boas and several in the Schaum Outline Series).

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An undergraduate review, November 30, 1999

By 

Rod HUg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Fourth Edition (Hardcover)

My instructor chose Arfken as the text for our Mathematical Physics class. He has a high opinion of the book, although he did not require it to be read and did not assign any of the exercises. Rather than using Arfken, most of the students in my class used various mathematics and physics books from the university library. My opinion of Arfken is that it is so condensed that it is not understandable to undergraduates. You need to consult other texts extensively to fill in the gaps. For example, Arfken develops tensor analysis on pages 126 thru 130, 5 pages total. My copy of Applications of Tensor Analysis by McConnell does the same on it's first 171 pages. I hesitate to say that Arfken is useless, but you can draw your own conclusion from my last example. Arfken is so abbreviated that it is not useful to the undergraduate as a reference either, in my opinion. Perhaps it is useful to persons who are familiar with the subject matter in advance, I am not sure. Were one or a group of people to flush this book out it might be more useful, but it would no doubt become many volumes.

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A physicists handbook for mathematics -- not a textbook, June 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Fourth Edition (Hardcover)

The lecturer of our undergraduate Mathematical Methods for Physics course said that he recommends Arfken's book because it will be useful also later as a reference book. Hearing those words, I could not help but to think "this is one of *those* books". And indeed, although Arfken's and Weber's book covers quite a wide range of mathematics, it does so by being very concise, e.g. there is usually only one example per topic. This is one example of why it is not a good textbook. Not following Arfken's course, I will give another example: there are no answers and no solutions for any of the problems, making it very undesirable from the viewpoint of the person who cannot attend all the lectures. Finally, text itself is quite concise, and often it stops at telling the things rather than explaining them also. I guess I have to admit that I am not one of the excellent students mentioned by a reviewer, for I liked Kreyszig's Advanced Engineering Mathematics much more. As a contrast to Arfken's book, it offered many examples and helped to understand what the thing was all about. Unfortunately, it does not cover nearly all of the topics covered by Mathematical Methods for Physicists. If Mathematical Methods for Physicists is going to be your first introductory text to these topics and if you are not supported by very good lectures I can only say that may God have mercy on your soul.