Modern Physics

The person who said " Stay away from this textbook at all costs" apparently never read the book and tried to do problems. What right does he have to even comment on this book? I took this class from the author (Randy Harris), and this is perhaps the best physics books I have read. He directly speaks to the reader which creates a comfort zone. The material gets tough as you progress through the book. Harris does his best to keep things clear, but Quantum Physics is supposed to be confusing (this is where the beauty lies). The examples are helpful in reienforcing the main concepts. It is true that some of the problems in the back are extremely challenging and no hints are given. But, does your boss at work give you hints for your tasks? Harris really wants you to understand and then solve problems, not just plug and chug. So, get this book for self-studying. It will teach you more than what the majority of professors can. Harris has been a lecturer for over 25 years now, and you can definitely benefit from his interesting way of teaching. I will leave you with an inspiring quote from Randy Harris: "You gonna have to start accepting things you don't believe in" (referring to ideas in Modern Physics).

I have been studying from this book for the past few weeks. Dr. Harris presents the material in a clean and clear way that demonstrates all the nuances and subtleties of relativity and quantum mechanics. Not only that, but the material is concise. Mathematical details are thrown into the Appendices for those who are interested in the mathematics, but for everyone else, the main results and concepts are presented. The problems, as I have seen, are also reasonable in length and difficulty. This book is definitely worth your time and effort if you truly wish to gain a strong introduction to relativity and quantum mechanics.

This book was very helpful, its formulas and tables were clearly organized and consise. Easy to read and follow. My book in particular came with some wear and use, and some writing on the pages but it was in very good condition still. For the price to rent however, it could be lower...

The book arrived on time, which is a huge bonus and always a good start. However the condition, while not bad, was less than I had hoped. I think the book would have been better off classified as one level below its advertised condition based on my 7+ years of experience purchasing used textbooks for my seemingly endless degree.

This textbook was very well written. The author truly knows how a textbook should work. Chapter 1's are always the worst and the most boring. However, Dr. Harris kept chapter 1 concise and straight to the point. It introduced ideas of modern physics and the problem with classical physics. That's that. No usual boring explanation of the scientific method or what a hypothesis is, etc. The textbook uses simple enough language that anyone who reads it can figure out what is happening. Very interesting stuff! I'm taking the course with the author himself! How awesome is that?

I teach using this book and my comments are limited to my experiences. It works well to reinforce concepts from 100/1000-level texts (and is a lot less confusing to students than the "lower" level Tom Moore series, for example). It is also an excellent primer for upper-division courses in QM, nuclear/particle, EM; though less so for general relativity and classical (esp. Lagrangian) mechanics. I don't personally like it (see below), but it "does what it it says on the tin," and I haven't found a replacement! My gripes are: (i) Special relativity is confusing and goes on, and on, and on... (ii) QM skips some of the more insightful mathematical bits and is ultimately not satisfying; (iii) after going through the statistical mechanics chapters, I thought that I'd never see any of these kids in upper-division thermodynamics ever again; finally (iv) it is now woefully out of date. The problems are not great, too, and solutions (the more you pay, the better they are) are all over the interweb. But, the book is well-written, is a great primer for college sophomores (or non-physics majors who AP-tested out of intro physics), and gives a flavor of what is to come in higher level courses. My $0.02.

I'm taking Quantum 2 this semester, and this is the second book we were required to buy. The first was Cohen-Tannoudji (sp) Quantum Mechanics Volume 2, which was terrible. Then, for the second half of this course we got this book. I wish I had looked at this book while we were using the Cohen book, because it is just so much easier to digest. It actually explains things, and gives examples in the text. A solid modern physics textbook for sure.

Purchased this textbook for my sophomore-year class on relativity. It is a very well-written book that spares no expense in making sure the reader understands the complexities of modern physics. Every topic is broken down both conceptually (often with diagrams) and mathematically, and the writing is clear and cuts right to the heart of the matter.

It was in good quality and certainly very useful!

Mandatory for my class so I got it used and found the condition good. Lots of visuals to help explain things along with some very appreciated weird physics humor every few pages. We tackled a lot of tricky topics sometimes without a good understanding of the math behind it. The textbook does a decent job at addressing that but often proofs are "for a higher level course," or worse, excercises! It seems to me kind of like standing physics on its head to from the order it was discovered, but it helped me parse a good chunk of a confusing class