Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind (PDF)

Description

The third volume in the bestselling physics series cracks open Einstein’s special relativity and field theory Physicist Leonard Susskind and data engineer Art Friedman are back. This time, they introduce readers to Einstein’s special relativity and Maxwell’s classical field theory. Using their typical brand of real math, enlightening drawings, and humor, Susskind and Friedman walk us through the complexities of waves, forces, and particles by exploring special relativity and electromagnetism. It’s a must-read for both devotees of the series and any armchair physicist who wants to improve their knowledge of physics’ deepest truths.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”When I wanted to learn about Relativity, an intelligent friend whose opinion I respect recommended checking out Leonard Susskind’s Stanford course on youtube on the subject. I am generally a bit busy to watch hour long videos on tough subjects, and find reading them a bit easier, so I picked up this book. Suffice to say, this was exactly what I wanted. It is not a book like Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Cosmos” which is written for the more general reader (but still an excellent book). This is for the educated reader who is trained in some science or engineering. Susskind’s doesn’t merely state things or give thought experiments (which are useful on their own), but actually shows the math. The result is that I feel happy about my understanding of special relativity now. I even picked up a Schaum book with problems on Special Relativity and was able to solve some problems from it.Special relativity basically ends at Chapter 3. Classical Field theory concepts pick up after that. Here Susskind is explaining what relativity explains about Maxwell’s equations and about how light is made up of electric fields, magnetic fields and propagates as a wave. While the later half of the book did help me understand the connection, I found it harder to follow. I think this was because of Tensors which I had not learned in school with a focus (it is math heavy subject). While Susskind does explain things well, he does so mostly using symbols. I for one benefit from some grinding manually with numbers before I get the point of the symbols. I feel I did not follow the latter half of the book as well as I did the first half.Although this is NOT meant to be a textbook, I would have desperately liked some solved problems to go along with this book. And since there are a lot of equations, I wouldn’t have minded having a cheat sheet of all the numbered equations from his book readily available so that I didn’t have sift back and forth through the book.If I were to do this again (and I will probably ready Susskind’s other books), I think while I am reading along, I will probably write the equations he has written in a separate notebook and make notes that way. Perhaps that will help me understand some things better.While I think this is a 5-star book, I have knocked a star for the few negatives. I highly recommend this book. Thank you Susskind and Friedman for being my first theoretical introduction to the subject matter. It was worth it. I am eagerly waiting on your General Relativity book in 2023. Meanwhile, I will try to go over the Schaum Tensor Calculus book of math problems. Hopefully, this will prepare me for General Relativity.

⭐Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory is part of Leonard Susskinds series of lectures for a non-specialist audience but who’s background is likely a STEM education. The book covers special relativity from scratch and builds up to field theory, actions and the tensor formulation of electromagnetism. It is done in plain language that can be followed by many, though without a background in the subjects it will be difficult to appreciate. The reader can also follow the lectures online as they have been made available to the public by Stanford.I must admit I have read this book two times now, appreciating it much more the 2nd time. The material on special relativity was very approachable the first time but the field theory section, which is more of the book, was more challenging at first. The book effectively walks the reader through the subject quite casually. It is not written as a textbook but more in the spirit of the lectures as a conversation. This is great if one is familiar with the subject as you get a sense of how Susskinds framing of how to think about the topics is so inspiring for the conversation. For those less familiar, the conversation gives a false sense of mastery, which was me in my first reading. I recall finishing and then realizing I didnt really have the understanding I wanted. After spending some time learning general relativity from a textbook i revisited this. As before the special relativity was easy and clear and in this second reading the field theory portion came much more to life. Also the field theory part is really quite a highlight as it is not a topic that is readily covered in other books but it is truly essential for modern physics and formulating theories from Lagrangians. As such I realize now that one does need a stronger background to really appreciate the book, but when one is familiar with the underlying ideas, these lectures, book series are really great overviews to help imprint the knowledge steeped with valuable intuition.Special Relativity and Classical Field theory is a readable and excellent overview of these subjects discussed in an approachable fashion not overwhelmed with technical details. It can be read by those without the strongest of backgrounds but I believe that leads to a false sense of confidence. With a reasonable background this book is an excellent supplement to more comprehensive books giving better intuition to difficult subjects than is found in dry textbooks. The special relativity portion is great to read and the field theory portion, though more difficult, is great if one has some background. Definitely recommend but I think prerequisites help and no physics background is a significant stretch.

⭐Easy to follow logical narrative completely ruined by poor formatting of the equations where they form part of the text. E.g. one half 1/2 is rendered as 12, x squared as x2 so one half x squared is rendered as 12×2. Parentheses are not displayed either making the equations very difficult to decipher. Shame because the author’s style is very readable.

⭐The climax of this book is the derivation of the laws of electrodynamics from the action principle. It is assumed that your starting point is Theoretical Minimum Vol 1, where the action principle for non-relativistic particles was introduced. For electrodynamics, the action principle must be extended to incorporate the 4-dimensional space-time of special relativity. Crucially, the electrodynamic Lagrangian must now also satisfy Lorentz invariance, as well as gauge invariance. Furthermore, Noether symmetry and the Hamiltonian from Vol 1 are also used to derive their field equivalents: the electromagnetic energy and momentum densities. It’s quite a journey, and along the way this reader was very gently led through all the necessary background (special relativity, space-time, scalar invariants, tensors, extension of Euler-Lagrange to fields, and more) until the exhilarating moment of seeing Maxwell’s equations fall out from the the equations. It was all new to me, and it was a truly unforgettable experience, for which I thank the authors from the bottom of my heart.I don’t want to grouch – O! How I hate to, but if I may make a suggestion? Namely, that future editions include a kind of roadmap or summary to indicate where and how the various concepts link to each other. Maybe even just a glossary of the most important terms would help the reader not lose their way.

⭐This book is nothing short of amazing; Susskind manages to explain a complicated topic in an accessible way, and I enjoyed every page. It’s helped a lot with my Physics degree! I love how this book doesn’t shy away from equations (whereas usually popular science books do).

⭐Hugely disappointing that someone should publish a work in this state.Formulae are a complete mess and makes the work unreadable.For example, what (I think) should be:-1/(1-V^2) (where V^2 means v-squared, unable to copy superscript in here)is rendered as1 1 V2You have to work out from the text what is really meant, which is very hard work when there are so many errors.This edition should be withdrawn until it is fixed.

⭐It leads you in bite-size chunks through the proper maths of the subject that I’ve always been frustrated that is missing from other “pop-science” books. I can follow most of it though it is slightly beyond my grasp, but it has given me another layer of understanding about how this stuff fits together.I’ve been wishing for some time that someone would write this and now they have :)(This and the one on Quantum Mechanics)

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