Mathematics for Physicists

by Philippe Dennery and Andre Krzywicki

Book Overview

"A fine example of how to present 'classical' physical mathematics." -- American Scientist
Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this volume provides a thorough background in the mathematics needed to understand today's more advanced topics in physics and engineering. Without sacrificing rigor, the authors develop the theoretical material at length, in a highly readable, and, wherever possible, in an intuitive manner...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486691934
• ISBN13: 9780486691930
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

readable and elegant account of mathematical physics

Dennery and Krzywicki is somewhat unusual in the sense that it puts noticeable emphasis on the mathematical formalism and it strives to give a broader picture of each topic instead of tedious algebraic manipulations for solving certain special problems that might not be of interest to everyone. Moreover, the authors do not try to cover a very broad spectrum of topics and rather focus on the formal aspects of fewer mathematical subjects. Altough the book`s lacking of sections on group theory and differential geometry might be seen as glaring omissions, it excels didactically in all the topics it touches upon. Especially, its treatment of complex analysis and orthogonal polynomials is absolutely exceptional. For those who want to have a reference work that contains almost every standard topic at senior undergraduate/beginning graduate level while not taking the mathematical elegance and rigor as a priority, Arfken`s text would be a better choice. For more advanced and up-to-date account of mathematical methods, I would recommend Hassani`s (Mathematical Physics) or Szekeres`s texts. All in all, I find this text as an excellent work on graduate level mathematical physics and refer it constantly for my work.

A very good book

I strongly recommend this book! I am university lecturer and I was using it over recent years as a main source for the course"Mathematical Methods in Physics". The material is well chosen,supplemented with good examples which illustrate interesting andnon-trivial issues in an accessible for a student way. It is a safe and a good buy!

Mathematics for Physicists by Dennery and Krzywicki

This is a splendid textbook for both practicing engineers and scientists, not just physicists. It is a mine of useful techniquesand formulae and I would recommend it both as a reference text for use when working and for general dipping into.The book covers an extraordinarily wide amount of the sort ofmathematics that both students and professionals might use on a day-to-day basis, and it clearly written and well laid out.A very worthwhile purchase.

Seamless, wonderfully consistent, immense didactic economy

This is easily the best book I have found for the purposes of an engineer (such as this reviewer), or perhaps a physicist, wishing to acquire certain areas of mathematics quickly. In my current work (in electromagnetics) I have had to brush-up-on/acquire topics including: function spaces; vector spaces; differential equations (with adjoint operators etc.); and Green's functions and identities. This book beats all others I consulted for this purpose. Although the book is seemless, chapters are mainly self-contained. The absence of problems/exercises is actually beneficial for my purposes, since the author has made the text correspondingly more complete. There are, however, a small number of judiciously placed examples, with quality rather than quantity being the author's apparent principle;- Once you have absorbed Professor Dennery's exposition of a particular topic, you are then aptly equiped to go to other texts for examples. In summary, this is a gem, Dennery is the 'Kubrick of maths writers'.

Clear and easy to follow text although rigorous and advanced

I studied this wonderful book for the math. for physicists class at Bogazici Univ., Turkey. We covered every part of this book, supplemented by Arfken. The elegant treatment of the diverse material is clear and easy to follow although the level is high and quite abstract. The drawbacks are lack of sufficient examples or exercises and occasional complexities in the text.