Feynman's Lectures on Physics may be a classic physics textbook, but I'm not sure it's the best book for beginners. It wasn't for me, at least. The text is often long-winded (may have to do with Feynman avoiding higher mathematics, but it makes some chapters, especially in volume 3, nearly unreadable), and he covers a lot more stuff than a beginner will ever need (large chunks of volume 2). It's an ingenious book, but it probably a little too ingenious for many undergrads.
For beginners, I can recommend the books by Tipler and Alonso/Finn. Some volumes of the Berkley Physics Course are also noteworthy, although they differ in quality; volume 2 (electromagnetism) and 5 (thermodynamics) are amon g the best introductory physics books I have read so far.
Quantum mechanics is a tough subject to learn. Again, Alonso and Finn provide a clear exposition of the basics. Real QM is covered by many, many books, but most of them struggle with the fact that (a) QM is is highly non-intuitive, and (b) it's a math-heavy subject. I went with Messiah's QM book (which includes a superb treatment of the mathematical underpinnings of QM), but I also heard good things about the QM book by Greiner.
One last note. A book I can heartily recommend to anyone (at least marginally) interested in physics is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne. This is easily the best and most interesting pop science book I ever read. (See the reader reviews at amazon if you don't believe me:-)
I'm an undergraduate student of physics at the university of Heidelberg and I've been wondering recently where physics is heading. To me it seems like we are only waiting for more powerful mathematical methods to solve even more complex problems, without having too many new phenomena to discover and mysteries to unravel.
What I'd like to know is the following: To me as an undergraduate student and probably to many other people, it seems as if physics was standing still at the moment. Every now and then, scientists discover a new property of some elementary particle, but -- if it weren't for the GUT every physicist is longing for -- one may think, that the great discoveries have already been made and we are only struggling with ever more complex problems. (This somewhat reminds me of computer science btw...) What is your opinion on this? Can we expect any major breakthroughs in the next few years or decades? Or do we already have the theoretical foundations to "understand" nature? And what branches of physics do you currently consider the most innovative and interesting?
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Feynman's Lectures on Physics may be a classic physics textbook, but I'm not sure it's the best book for beginners. It wasn't for me, at least. The text is often long-winded (may have to do with Feynman avoiding higher mathematics, but it makes some chapters, especially in volume 3, nearly unreadable), and he covers a lot more stuff than a beginner will ever need (large chunks of volume 2). It's an ingenious book, but it probably a little too ingenious for many undergrads.
For beginners, I can recommend the books by Tipler and Alonso/Finn. Some volumes of the Berkley Physics Course are also noteworthy, although they differ in quality; volume 2 (electromagnetism) and 5 (thermodynamics) are amon g the best introductory physics books I have read so far.
Quantum mechanics is a tough subject to learn. Again, Alonso and Finn provide a clear exposition of the basics. Real QM is covered by many, many books, but most of them struggle with the fact that (a) QM is is highly non-intuitive, and (b) it's a math-heavy subject. I went with Messiah's QM book (which includes a superb treatment of the mathematical underpinnings of QM), but I also heard good things about the QM book by Greiner.
One last note. A book I can heartily recommend to anyone (at least marginally) interested in physics is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne. This is easily the best and most interesting pop science book I ever read. (See the reader reviews at amazon if you don't believe me :-)
What I'd like to know is the following: To me as an undergraduate student and probably to many other people, it seems as if physics was standing still at the moment. Every now and then, scientists discover a new property of some elementary particle, but -- if it weren't for the GUT every physicist is longing for -- one may think, that the great discoveries have already been made and we are only struggling with ever more complex problems. (This somewhat reminds me of computer science btw...) What is your opinion on this? Can we expect any major breakthroughs in the next few years or decades? Or do we already have the theoretical foundations to "understand" nature? And what branches of physics do you currently consider the most innovative and interesting?