What's a good mathematical physics book for undergrad?

mathematical physics is just physics

>>8953034
Boas is a good start, most people like arfken and webber at the higher level

>>8953034
How much math have you already taken? There are some books that start from the ground up, others assume that you've already seen the physics side and just need the tools.
Also mathematical physics for what exactly? String theory, qft, condensed matter, acoustics, gr, seismic, or just something very general? How far do you want to go, i.e. learning techniques for solving pdes or learning gauge theory?

>>8953046
I've taken up to linear algebra, calc 3, and differential equations. I'm basically looking for the type of book an undergraduate mathematical physics course would use.

>>8953039
I'll check these out. I always thought Boas was a meme because
>women

>>8953129
Do you mean like a Mathematical Methods book? Mathematical Physics is not the same thing.

>>8953132
Yeah, my bad. I thought the difference was semantic.

>>8953034
>mathematical physics book for undergrad

They're not worth your time. Just read a complex variables book or a tensor/differential geometry book.

>I don't have time for that shit

You don't need math methods knowledge for your other undergrad courses and they won't be enough for grad work. You're wasting time weaning yourself in.

Use Arfken for exercises.
Learn the subject from Butkov or Courant & Hilbert or Riley, Hobson, Bence or whatever you can find in terms of lectures like S. Mauch.
There's no ideal source, so if your prof is not a brainlet he should've written notes for your class.

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Either

>Michael Greenberg's Advanced Engineering Mathematics

Or

>Peter Szerkeres' A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics

I recommend the latter if you are not a brainlet, and the former if you aren't dumb enough to fall for the boas/arfken memes, or your an engineer pretending that you'll actually be able to do math physics.

Seriously, do basic research like reading the tables of contents or browsing through the "read me" previews on google/amazon.

Half of these easy ass textbook threads could be solved by just spending an evening googling book reviews, because ~90% of the recommendations are just names coughed up by undergrads who used them or heard they were good, or worse yet, memes. At least go to the /sci/ wikia...

But by all means, fall for the arfken meme, but that book is shit, and more like a reference text then something that's pleasurable to learn from. Boas isn't much better. Engineering math methods books usually suck, but Greenberg's really is a cut above in the included content, with only a small amount missing from difference equations, but still covering it.

Lads who may feel dismay, I'm almost done creating my image guides for undergrad book flowcharts, hang in there.

Electricity and Magnetism:
Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th Edition) by David J. Griffiths

Quantum Mechanics:
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition) by David J. Griffiths
A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics 2nd Edition John S. Townsend

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>>8953431
Both relatively irrelevant to what OP asked for

http://4chan-science.wikia.com/wiki/Physics_Textbook_Recommendations#Mathematics_Resources

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>>8953034
Depends on which area you want to look into. Do Landau-Lifshitz first before doing anything else.

>constructive quantum field theory: Baez
>geometric quantization: Woodhouse
>TQFT: Turaev
>quantum braid groups: Nayak
>quantum knots/loop algebras: Witten

>>8953034
Hassani has a good one. Also Szekeres is pretty good.

>>8953034
>>8953160
These books are useless. They barely teach anything at all. For most of the physics you'll do you won't need this stuff and even then you can just look it up. For later theory you'll need math far beyond what these books teach like differential geometry or algebraic topology. You need to learn the math from actual math books.

>>8953343
wew lad

>>8953034
- here is your recipe
learn a bit of differential geometry using something like vector analysis by janich
read any book on lagrangian / hamiltonian mechanics, read / prove by yourself main theorems and do exercises (or start with exercises, usual pendulums examples are good enough to motivate the theory)
use same methods in other fields
end.

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>>8953932
>all passion is autism
Fuck you I like books and helping people learn

>>8953034
Arnold - Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics
Spivak - Mechanics
Scheck

>>8954107
No. You're clearly an egocentric normalfag in desperate need of validation.

>>8953034

Boas is a little poor in my opinion, but it's compact (and relatively cheap as I recall). I didn't find it particularly helpful except for practice problems.

Riley, Hobson and Bence is a wonderful book for an undergrad that will cover your needs. I have no experience with Arfken, but know that it is highly rated.

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>>8956109
>implying it matters whether I'm a normal fag or not, and that this entire board isn't for validation

My recommendations are solid and at least better than average, but feel free to post your own.