List of important publications in physics

Last updated

Title page of the first edition of Isaac Newton's Opticks (1704) Opticks.jpg
Title page of the first edition of Isaac Newton's Opticks (1704)

This is a list of noteworthy publications in physics, organized by type.

Contents

General audience

Textbooks

Bibliographies by author

Journals

Related Research Articles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to physics:

Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws, which provide the basis for Newtonian mechanics, can be paraphrased as follows:

  1. A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force.
  2. At any instant of time, the net force on a body is equal to the body's acceleration multiplied by its mass or, equivalently, the rate at which the body's momentum is changing with time.
  3. If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions.
<i>The Universe in a Nutshell</i> 2001 Stephen Hawkings book

The Universe in a Nutshell is a 2001 book about theoretical physics by Stephen Hawking. It is generally considered a sequel and was created to update the public concerning developments since the multi-million-copy bestseller A Brief History of Time was published in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David J. Griffiths</span> American physicist and textbook author

David Jeffrey Griffiths is an American physicist and educator. He was on the faculty of Reed College from 1978 through 2009, becoming the Howard Vollum Professor of Science before his retirement. He wrote three highly regarded textbooks for undergraduate physics students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vladimir Fock</span> Russian physicist (1898–1974)

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock was a Soviet physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Goldstein</span> American physicist

Herbert Goldstein was an American physicist and the author of the standard graduate textbook Classical Mechanics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryogo Kubo</span> Japanese physicist

Ryogo Kubo was a Japanese mathematical physicist, best known for his works in statistical physics and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.

<i>Fundamentals of Physics</i> Physics Textbook by Halliday, Resnick, Walker

Fundamentals of Physics is a calculus-based physics textbook by David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker. The textbook is currently in its 12th edition.

<i>Classical Mechanics</i> (Goldstein) Advanced undergraduate or graduate textbook

Classical Mechanics is a textbook written by Herbert Goldstein, a professor at Columbia University. Intended for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, it has been one of the standard references on its subject around the world since its first publication in 1950.

<i>Course of Theoretical Physics</i> Theoretical physics textbook series by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz

The Course of Theoretical Physics is a ten-volume series of books covering theoretical physics that was initiated by Lev Landau and written in collaboration with his student Evgeny Lifshitz starting in the late 1930s.

<i>Classical Mechanics</i> (Kibble and Berkshire) Textbook by Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble and Frank Berkshire

Classical Mechanics is a well-established textbook written by Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble and Frank Berkshire of the Imperial College Mathematics Department. The book provides a thorough coverage of the fundamental principles and techniques of classical mechanics, a long-standing subject which is at the base of all of physics.

<i>Introduction to Electrodynamics</i> Undergraduate textbook by David J. Griffiths

Introduction to Electrodynamics is a textbook by physicist David J. Griffiths. Generally regarded as a standard undergraduate text on the subject, it began as lecture notes that have been perfected over time. Its most recent edition, the fifth, was published in 2023 by Cambridge University. This book uses SI units exclusively. A table for converting between SI and Gaussian units is given in Appendix C.

<i>Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics</i> Textbook by Herbert Callen

Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics is a textbook written by Herbert Callen that explains the basics of classical thermodynamics and discusses advanced topics in both classical and quantum frameworks. It covers the subject in an abstract and rigorous manner and contains discussions of applications. The textbook contains three parts, each building upon the previous. The first edition was published in 1960 and a second followed in 1985.

Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods is a 1993 quantum physics textbook by Israeli physicist Asher Peres. Well-regarded among the physics community, it is known for unconventional choices of topics to include.

<i>Introduction to Solid State Physics</i> Classic textbook in by Charles Kittel

Introduction to Solid State Physics, known colloquially as Kittel, is a classic condensed matter physics textbook written by American physicist Charles Kittel in 1953. The book has been highly influential and has seen widespread adoption; Marvin L. Cohen remarked in 2019 that Kittel's content choices in the original edition played a large role in defining the field of solid-state physics. It was also the first proper textbook covering this new field of physics. The book is published by John Wiley and Sons and, as of 2018, it is in its ninth edition and has been reprinted many times as well as translated into over a dozen languages, including Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. In some later editions, the eighteenth chapter, titled Nanostructures, was written by Paul McEuen. Along with its rival Ashcroft and Mermin, the book is considered a standard textbook in condensed matter physics.

<i>Lectures on Theoretical Physics</i> Series of textbooks by Arnold Sommerfeld

Lectures on Theoretical Physics is a six-volume series of physics textbooks translated from Arnold Sommerfeld's classic German texts Vorlesungen über Theoretische Physik. The series includes the volumes Mechanics, Mechanics of Deformable Bodies, Electrodynamics, Optics, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, and Partial Differential Equations in Physics. Focusing on one subject each semester, the lectures formed a three-year cycle of courses that Sommerfeld repeatedly taught at the University of Munich for over thirty years. Sommerfeld's lectures were famous and he was held to be one of the greatest physics lecturers of his time.

<i>Introduction to Quantum Mechanics</i> (book) Quantum mechanics textbook by David J. Griffiths

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, often called Griffiths, is an introductory textbook on quantum mechanics by David J. Griffiths. The book is considered a standard undergraduate textbook in the subject. Originally published by Pearson Education in 1995 with a second edition in 2005, Cambridge University Press (CUP) reprinted the second edition in 2017. In 2018, CUP released a third edition of the book with Darrell F. Schroeter as co-author; this edition is known as Griffiths and Schroeter.

<i>Modern Quantum Mechanics</i> Physics textbook

Modern Quantum Mechanics, often called Sakurai or Sakurai and Napolitano, is a standard graduate-level quantum mechanics textbook written originally by J. J. Sakurai and edited by San Fu Tuan in 1985, with later editions coauthored by Jim Napolitano. Sakurai died in 1982 before he could finish the textbook and both the first edition of the book, published in 1985 by Benjamin Cummings, and the revised edition of 1994, published by Addison-Wesley, were edited and completed by Tuan posthumously. The book was updated by Napolitano and released two later editions. The second edition was initially published by Addison-Wesley in 2010 and rereleased as an eBook by Cambridge University Press, who released a third edition in 2020.