Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum Reprint Edition

This latest book by Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman is a masterpiece. This well written book gets my five stars because, at least for me, it admirably lived up to its claim to present the theoretical minimum necessary to start doing physics. Let me further explain.(1) There are many well written books explaining the chemical properties of substances in terms of electron spin and the exclusion principle. But, if you would like to go deeper and understand the origin of spin, the non-physicist is in trouble because there are not many easily understood books written about relativistic QM. To this end I tried reading the relativistic QM chapter in Liboff's textbook. Although well written, I had trouble understanding the concepts because it assumed the reader had some prior understanding of special relativity, especially four-vectors and the Lorentz transformations. Here is where Professor Susskind's book saved the day. He covered this background material with enough clarity and in enough depth that I was able to re-read Liboff's chapter and understand it well enough to even successfully work some of the chapter problems.(2) As part of my physics self-education, I got a copy of Byron and Fuller's Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics with the goal of working through the first few chapters. At the end of the first chapter, there were some problems based on the Electromagnetic Field tensor. In hindsight, the problems were not difficult, but nevertheless, I had trouble because I lacked an understanding of the tensor and how its components interconnect and transform. Again, Professor Susskind's book was indispensable. His coverage of tensor manipulations, coupled with an excellent introduction to the field tensor gave me an understanding sufficient to solve the chapter problem.I found his treatment of Maxwell's Equations to be a breath of fresh air. For quite some time, I wanted to find an understandable interpretation of their meaning. I kept putting it off however, because in my reference E&M book, Maxwell's equations were first mentioned a discouraging 295 pages into the book. For the self learner, Professor Susskind's introduction makes so much more sense. He gives an interpretation of Maxwell's Equations first, and then shows how the Laws of E&M follow. That approach made all the difference for me.As a non-physicist, I found Chapter 7 particularly enlightening. All of the fundamental principles of modern physics were clearly laid out in this chapter. Although each principle had been discussed in previous chapters of this book and earlier books in the series, this chapter connected them all together into a coherent, understandable and insightful whole. Thank you Professor Susskind!The last chapter's discussion of the energy-momentum tensor is setting the stage for General Relativity. I cannot wait to get my copy.In general, the book was well written and logically constructed. It was real physics presented with humor and style.The "secret word" describing this book is "excellence".

You’ll wade through this if you have a below average math background. Use with calculus for dummies.You’ll be happy when you finish and set aside for a second read.

This is broad and clear presentation of the concepts required to understand the topics in the book's title. I've thoroughly enjoyed TTM video lectures several years ago. Nevertheless I've enjoyed reading the book and have learnt the subject even deeper by doing so. Including an important lecture that has been somehow omitted in the video lectures, certainly is a big plus. Eliminating distractions that come with live video presentation - such as repetitions, searching for a missing minus sign in a derivation, or a camera pointing to a wrong line on a blackboard - makes the material flowing very smoothly. Typos and imperfect Kindle formatting of math happen, but are easily detectable and do not distract from the contents. The explanations are perfectly tuned with an amateur physicist in mind. That wiseguy mentioned in the book also said, "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." This is the book to read!

This is the three book in the series I have read. The first book set up a lot of the mathematical machinery used here, namely the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian along with conservation laws and symmetries.I struggled a bit with the second book on quantum mechanics - have to go back and have another crack at that one.But this one was REALLY good. The setup of the book was so logical and the mathematical development was so well paced that I could feel much greater mathematical sophistication that helped me to anticipate many of the subsequent developments. Now, I will not say that I could erase all the equations and mathematical reasoning segments from the book, and as an exercise, recreate them from memory, calculation, and my own reasoning, but I will say that if you go over the material at a comfortable pace and are willing to look back a chapter or two or three to remind yourself of some key detail, you will be very well rewarded with a view into special relativity, electrodynamics, and classical field theory.Now back to Quantum.I cannot wait for General Relativity to come out. Chapter 11 seemed like almost like a cliffhanger to change gears into gravitational field theory.In your reference frame, take the time to read this book. As for general relativity, when it comes out, You Bet Your Life I will read that one.