Principles of Electrodynamics (Dover Books on Physics)

This book is truly superb. I am a self-studier of physics and found this to be one of the best books on any subject in physics that I have read. Somehow it strikes a balance between explaining ideas at an introductory level yet takes a very mature and deep insight into the subject. As other readers have mentioned, the development of almost all of electrodynamics from Coulomb's Law, the Principle of Special Relativity, and a little 'intuition' and 'aesthetics' makes this book transcend the level of other physics texts and even makes it deeply philosophical.Very few words are wasted, and the careful reader can really master the field of electrodynamics with this book. Little prerequisite knowledge is assumed; probably multivariable calculus (with vector analysis) and introductory newtonian mechanics are all that are absolutely needed. One possible exception is that the discussion on special relativity is a little hard to follow if you have never had any exposure to it before. Thus, I would suggest having a good grasp of SR, especially including four-vectors (and ideally four-tensors) if possible before undertaking this book. One definite criticism I had of this book is its use of imaginary numbers in the definition of Minkowski four-vectors. Although this was Minkowski's original idea, it is virtually universally abandoned (as it should be) in every treatment of general relativity; because of this, almost all modern books on GR abandon its use in SR. It is too bad that it is used here, but this is really my only criticism of an otherwise near perfect book.

This is one of those great and inexpensive Dover books, it is definitely a book taylored for physicists, its not a beginners book, rather an advanced EM book heavily based on relativism from the start. If you wish to learn EM from this book, then I would say that there are better options, but it is a great book for a second or third course on EM. I am an engineer and find the book to be out of my league, considering my current understanding of EM theory, applications are practically non-existent and mathematical derivations are profound and rigorous, however the author seems to be a good educator eventhough the book is quite dry in both writting style and looks (as most Dover books)

Professors always told me electromagnetic theory can come from relativity, but pretty much never talked about it. Even the textbooks reference it but do not go into much depth. Well, this book does, and it is really a masterpiece to read. The author does a great job walking you through the steps and its really eye-opening and brings deeper understanding. Definitely recommended as a complement to any student's normal textbooks. It should really be the standard.

I read this book cover-to-cover a few years ago as a review of E&M theory. Overall, it was a good technical read. I will offer a few notes:1. This is a Dover reprint of a classic text (circa 1972), but then again E&M theory is a lot older than that, so....2. The book is a physics text--not an engineering text, so it is heavy on theory and light on applications. Don't expect to see any Smith charts. Coverage of transmission lines, wave-guides, etc., is nominal.3. The book is heavy into vector calculus, so come with the requisite mathematical background.4. The author isn't afraid of diving into some serious mathematical machinations. My favorite is the derivation of the plane-wave equation in Chapter 6--it runs on for five pages (in fine detail).5. The book reads rather dry (yes, I know its a technical book--but it is dry even for a physics text). The only particularly memorable deviation from the classical theory was a description of the method used to search for magnetic monopoles in moon rocks (which was a hot topic in 1972--evidently).For the modest price, this Dover reprint provides an economical volume for your home technical library. Regard it as a theoretical tome--not a 'how to' book.

I took Freshman Physics from Schwartz at Stanford in 1975. I came across these reviews while trying to see if his book was still in print.Schwartz was the clearest teacher I had in my career - and I had some great ones, Marty Perl, Ted Haensch, Mahiko Suzuki, John Whelan, Brian Pippard and Dave Jackson himself for Quantum Mechanics, all great and Schwartz was better. We figured out about week two that he was basing his freshman class on this book.Schwartz said later that Steve Jobs audited this Freshman physics class. If so, Jobs did not stand out, we were too fascinated and terrified by Schwartz to notice the Apple founder in our midst.If you know vector calculus and want to really understand E+M, read this book - there is not a wasted word in it.I'm buying a 3rd copy to lend out to students.

Good book but poor printing quality and wrinkled cover caused by bad packaging

No one is forcing me or incentivizing me to re-study this topic. But I am happy to work on this material because the author is so skillful. This book also reminds one that in earlier times, our engineers were a lot more skillful than they are now. Nonetheless, this book leads the way even though it comes from a time when the fundamentals seemed to carry more weight.

I really like this text very much and gladly give it five stars. However, I am very disappointed with the Kindle version. Amazon is still butchering mathematics and science texts with this mobi thing. Extremely poor mathematics rendering and rendering of figures. Flowable text works fine for books that are just text like scifi or romance novels and so on. For books like Schwartz's they need to be using print replica format or completely reset the book using html5 and mathml and credible rendering engines. It's really sad to see beautiful texts like Schwartz's Principles mistreated in this way. I hope we aren't going to see a whole series of poor republications of Dover books. That would be a real shame.

If you learned electrostatics at university and you want to understand Einstein's theory of gravitation, this is a great start because shows that magnetism is a relativistic effect of charge in motion. I studied it because it starts with a review of vector rotation basics and geometry then later applies tensors to an area of physics that I already understand. So when I moved on to study gravitation I could focus on physical concepts and rather than the mathematics of tensors, tensors being essential to Einsteins geometry based explanation of relativistic gravity.

Awesome text, kind of must read...

電磁気学(特殊相対論の基礎も含む)の物理的な考え方と、その数学的な取り扱い方について、時折ユーモアを交えつつも懇切丁寧に解説しています。スタイルは、ベクトル解析、静電気学ときて、一旦特殊相対論に進んで、そのあとの議論を続けるという形となっており、歴史的流れとは逆行しますが、論理的にはすっきりするものを採用しています。この辺は、ランダウ、リフシッツの「場の古典論」の流れに近いかと思いますが、上にも書いたように、物理的、数学的に丁寧に解説してあるので、初学者でも無理なく理解できるのではないかと思います。ともかく、値段も手頃ですし、英語もそれほど難しくはないので、電磁気学の最初の教科書としてかなり良いと思います。

The majority of textbooks on the market these days are hideously expensive. This book however is nice and cheap and very very well explained. Electrodynamics is a mathematical subject and this book makes each step clearly and cleanly explained. This should be on the bookshelves of every physics undergraduate.

Book was delivered late and I wanted to take it away while on holiday but was unable to. I have since returned and have reviewed the book briefly. It’s more comprehensive than I expected and covers the subject matter extremely well if you are studying the subject at school or university. Personally, I was hoping for something by way of an introduction to the subject. Having said that the book is very reasonably priced when you compare it to other technical reference books for students.