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Good Physics Books For a Math PhD Student?
An anonymous reader writes "As a third-year PhD math student, I am currently taking Partial Differential Equations. I'm working hard to understand all the math being thrown at us in that class, and that is okay. The problem is, I have never taken any physics anywhere. Most of the problems in PDEs model some sort of physical situation. It would be nice to be able to have in the back of my mind where this is all coming from. We constantly hear about the heat equation, wave equation, gravitational potential, etc. I'm told I should not worry about what the equations describe and just learn how to work with them, but I would rather not follow that advice. Can anyone recommend physics books for someone in my position? I don't want to just pick up a book for undergrads. Perhaps there are things out there geared towards mathematicians?"
I have not yet finished college.. forced to take night classes, and have no where near as much campus time/experience as you and many others have, but it only took me about ... oh, 20 seconds to Google for some good sites, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation has links to pretty much all you mentioned. The links there point to other links for further reading. Note that in the reference section of wikipedia articles are links or information to books and such. I believe they're called citations. (citation needed)
As a third-year PhD math student.....
I'd think you would already have tried Google or Wikipedia. Your browser should have them on speed dial. So, really, what is your question?
BTW, Google has 916K hits for http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=physics%20of%20partial%20differential%20equations
Not to rant, but why do people post 'ask Slashdot' questions that are so vague a 20 second search seems to answer them? Editors!!???
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Ahem, I'm sorry I'm not a physicist; his name is Liftshitz? No way! Wasn't he criticized by the fabulously successful paper "F = ma", written by his arch enemy Dropshitz?
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