Mathematics for Physicists (Dover Books on Mathematics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Andre Krzywicki (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Excellent text provides thorough background in mathematics needed to understand today’s more advanced topics in physics and engineering. Topics include theory of functions of a complex variable, linear vector spaces, tensor calculus, Fourier series and transforms, special functions, more. Rigorous theoretical development; problems solved in great detail. Bibliography. 1967 edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (August 14, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486691934
• ISBN-13: 978-0486691930
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #240,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seamless, wonderfully consistent, immense didactic economy, August 2, 2001

By	Cole from Newcastle "Cannot believe what pass... - See all my reviews

This is easily the best book I have found for the purposes of an engineer (such as this reviewer), or perhaps a physicist, wishing to acquire certain areas of mathematics quickly. In my current work (in electromagnetics) I have had to brush-up-on/acquire topics including: function spaces; vector spaces; differential equations (with adjoint operators etc.); and Green's functions and identities. This book beats all others I consulted for this purpose. Although the book is seemless, chapters are mainly self-contained. The absence of problems/exercises is actually beneficial for my purposes, since the author has made the text correspondingly more complete. There are, however, a small number of judiciously placed examples, with quality rather than quantity being the author's apparent principle;- Once you have absorbed Professor Dennery's exposition of a particular topic, you are then aptly equiped to go to other texts for examples. In summary, this is a gem, Dennery is the 'Kubrick of maths writers'.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars readable and elegant account of mathematical physics, January 23, 2006

By	O. Burak Okan (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dennery and Krzywicki is somewhat unusual in the sense that it puts noticeable emphasis on the mathematical formalism and it
strives to give a broader picture of each topic instead of tedious algebraic manipulations for solving certain special problems that might not be of interest to everyone.

Moreover, the authors do not try to cover a very broad spectrum of topics and rather focus on the formal aspects of fewer mathematical subjects. Altough the book`s lacking of sections on group theory and differential geometry might be seen as glaring omissions, it excels didactically in all the topics it touches upon. Especially, its treatment of complex analysis and orthogonal polynomials is absolutely exceptional.

For those who want to have a reference work that contains almost every standard topic at senior undergraduate/beginning graduate level while not taking the mathematical elegance and rigor as a priority, Arfken`s text would be a better choice. For more advanced and up-to-date account of mathematical methods, I would recommend Hassani`s (Mathematical Physics) or Szekeres`s texts.

All in all, I find this text as an excellent work on graduate level mathematical physics and refer it constantly for my work.

39 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars There is a better book, June 14, 2003

By	"anonymous80" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

I recommend getting Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics by Byron and Fuller (also from Dover). You'll get more (quantity and quality) for your money. Mathematics For Physicists just isn't very good, poorly written compared to Math. of C. and Q. Physics.