Customer Reviews

The Physics of Waves

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

 

 

This is a truly exceptional book. It is incredibly clear and written in a wonderful way. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to clearly understand the subject.

I would like to personally thank the author for having written this book with so much attention and care.

It is also very nice of him to have posted the PDF file of the book on his web site where you can download it legally and for free (including the book animations)! Just Google: Howard Georgi's home page.

Probably the best wave book. It has the approach Crawford (3rd volume of Berkeley course) has but with a more definite and rigorous mathematical treatment.
Very nice to read and with plenty good problems to "have fun" with.

The only way I would read this garbage again is if I have a gun pointing at my head. This book is totally useless. I have to admit there aren't too many good "wave" books out there to use so my professor didn't really had much of a choice. I used this book this passed spring semester for my Honors Waves and Thermodynamics class at Cornell University. Since it's an honors class we required a book that has a more theoretical and math-intensive approach to Waves. I guess Georgi's goal was to write a bunch of formulas in a few badly put together pages and sell that as a book. Again what garbage; I had to take so much care of it, because I definitely knew I wasn't going to keep this crap and I wanted to sell it right here on the Amazon Marketplace as soon as I could. Believe me if you have to take a Waves class which forces you to use this so called "book" make sure you also check a real waves book from the library, like I did. I recommend The Berkley Physics Vol. 3 Waves book.

This is a great book, as long as you don't read it so much. If you open it too many times, pages start to fall out. Georgi's super mathematical, so it'll help to know linear algebra and diff. eq. Problems are pretty varied, from easy to somewhat hard. Nothing impossible though.

I am using this book as part of a physics course as an introduction to wave behavior. As a physics major at a school with a very rigorous program, I have already proven myself competent by surviving, and enjoying, my first year of physics courses. Like the student from Cornell said, though, this text is completely indecipherable to a student. I feel that to a physicist already familiar with the concepts that it might provide a nice, more mathematically rigorous review, but as a student just being introduced to this field, it is horrible. Don't expect to be able to learn a thing if you aren't already in the physics field and familiar with the mathematical leaps that he claims are "obvious" and that "follow easily."

For a student: 1 star
For a physicist: I couldn't say.

Because I can't review this from others' points of view, I will give it the benefit of the doubt, with the benefit being one star.