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Anyone read the Livshitz-Landau textbooks? Any thoughts on them and how the compare to the Feynman Lecture series? P.S. No immediate relation to Landau (and
by dannylandau 3y ago
Anyone read the Livshitz-Landau textbooks? Any thoughts on them and how the compare to the Feynman Lecture series?
P.S. No immediate relation to Landau (and family name is really Livshitz).
- max_ 3y agoThe Feynman lectures are definitely easier to understand. I could pick something from them. And more fun to read. Course of Theoretical Physics is too "cold". It however seems more comprehensive. As it looks to contain more material.
- wbl 3y agoFeynman was trying to teach the first three years of physics by mixing the splits between topics. It's far less comprehensive than L&L.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThey are incredibly dense. Like, it assumes you are already an expert on the topic and you need a high level refresher.
- vitehozonage 3y agoAccurate. I had a immigrant Russian professor in undergrad QM whom provided no notes, I could barely understand anything he said, and he just said to use L&L as the course book when people asked for help. I spent hours trying to read it but it was utterly useless. Worst studying experience I ever had
- orthoxerox 3y agoAs the joke goes, one morning Livshitz was riding a tram to work, someone pushed him and he dropped his manuscript into the mud, ruining a few pages. When he arrived at the lab, he complained to Landau that he would have to spend the whole day rewriting the proof of a tricky theorem because the middle part was now gone, but Landau suggested simply to put "from which it is obvious that" there instead.
- lr1970 3y ago> Anyone read the Livshitz-Landau textbooks? Any thoughts on them and how the compare to the Feynman Lecture series? Landau-Livshitz books are gradual level while Feynman Lectures are undergrad level physics course. They should not be directly compared to each other.
- thewanderer1983 3y agoAnother one worth mentioning is Theoretical Minimum by Susskind. It's not at the same level as Lev Landau though.
- steppi 3y agoIn undergrad I took a graduate class out of Calculus of Variations by Gelfand and Fomin [0] that went deep into the math of classical mechanics but assumed students already knew the relevant physics. I hadn't taken a proper classical mechanics class, and working through Volume 1 of Livshitz-Landau in parallel with the lectures helped to ground the material for me. A brilliant classmate who’s now a successful mathematical physicist had recommended the series. Later I tried to learn Quantum Mechanics while taking a course on Operator Theory, but gave up on using Volume 3 of Livshitz-Landau because it was just too impenetrable. I ended up going with Sakurai instead. I found Volume 1 to be beautiful read and felt like I was learning something profound. Volume 3 was beyond me. The only thing I'd say these books have in common with the Feynman Lectures is a dearth of exercises. This wasn't an issue for me reading Volume 1 of LL because that Calculus of Variations course had many exercises which I just wasn't in a position to appreciate without knowing more Physics.
- sigsergv 3y agoThat book was often referred as Landavshitz among students. Fantastic series.