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Comment by kuang_eleven | Hacker News Reader

Introduction of Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Electrodynamics, both by David J. Griffiths. He also wrote Introduction to Elementary Particles, but I have not read that one.

Both books masterfully take exceptionally complex fields and break them down into easily digested chunks, with a clear progression of ideas as you go through the book. Do note that these are "Introduction" books written for Junior/Senior Physics majors.

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You should also have a solid background in calculus before fully understanding these books. Typically, Physics majors take every undergrad calculus class offered in the math dept. at a college, then a few more in Physics just to be sure.

I'd say if you have a basic understanding of calculus (derivatives and integrals), you could get though Griffiths' books with another companion book, like what my college used: https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Science...

I'm still upset that my copies of Griffiths' texts were stolen my senior year of college...

Yeah, I could see that. Mostly, you need to be really comfortable with multivariable integration.

I had to learn some quantum for a graduate class, and even with my engineering background, Intro to Quantum by Griffiths was both extremely helpful and an awesome read. It's the first book that came to mind when I read the question.

>Griffiths

Yes!

I actually jumped in this thread to recommend Griffiths' Electrodynamics.

Even the review sections on how to think about things like divergence and curl is particularly well done by Griffiths.

Definitely, Griffith's Electrodynamics was a lot of fun. Still fondly recall working through the problems.

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