Introduction to Electrodynamics (3rd Edition)

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Summary: #1 advanced undergraduate text in E&M
Review: For anyone who is used to using undergrad texts that simply don't explain information clearly, look no further for your electrodynamics text. Griffith's text presents complicated material in a way that is easy to understand, and equips you to have a much easier time handling more complicated graduate texts like Jackson's E&M.

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Summary: Do they give noble prizes for literature in physics?
Review: If so, Griffiths has got my vote. This text is everything a physics text book should be. Griffiths presents material in a clear fashion like the brilliant teacher he is. And always there is a touch of genuine humor but reverence for the material. There are plenty of examples as well. The only down point is that the problems are too easy, but I guess that's O.K. You don't learn physics by struggling and failing to solve ridiculusly complicated problems.

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Summary: Good presentation of the subject !
Review: The best thing about this book is that it's contents are in right sequence ! Quite often the subject matter is jumbled but here the author has started with Calculus giving ample background about the tools we use for QED /ED etc. and has proceeded in similar fashion throughout the book. The prose is explained with rare lucidity but still the level of problems is not that tough as I expected !

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Summary: Best E & M textbook available but has two serious flaws
Review: Griffiths' book deserves 6,7 or more stars if it were to include more examples and answers to odd numbered questions. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to read this book.

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Summary: This may be the best textbook on any subject ever written.
Review: This textbook may well be the best textbook on any subject ever written by anybody. When I took my course at Grinnell College using this book, it was as though there were no need for lecture. The professor even admitted that with a text this good, the subject pretty much teaches itself. I cannot recommend a book more highly than I recommend this book. This language used to convey the information is so well-motivated that the student does not have to work on understanding what is going on.

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Summary: Best physics book I've seen
Review: If only Jackson were written this well. Griffiths has a good recipe: a small digestible chunk of physics, an example or 2, and some problems to work. His exposition is the clearest I've ever seen. This is the best physics text I have. I wish he'd write a graduate level text so I could toss Jackson out the window. I also wish he'd write a thermo book.. and a dynamics book, and ... Griffiths remains my favorite physics author. The only flaw in the text is the lack of any answers to the problems.

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Summary: Just a note: it's "Lorenz gauge", not "Lorentz"
Review: I found out from Pertti Lounesto's "Clifford Algebras and Spinors" that it was Ludwig Valentin LoreNZ, and not Hendrik Antoon LoreNTZ, who discovered the famous gauge condition. Griffiths' excellent textbook continues to perpetuate this error in its 3rd edition. It would be nice if widely used texts rectified this mistake. L. V. Lorenz defined the condition in an 1867 paper when H. A. Lorentz was 14. See: J. van Bladel, "Lorenz or Lorentz?", IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, vol. 33, No. 2, 1991, p. 69.

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Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: What can I say, Griffiths is a genious. He presents difficult ideas clearly and energetically. You can sit back on a Sunday afternoon and read about Wave Guides as if you were reading an essay by Twain or even a novel by Hemingway.

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Summary: More information necessary to make this a better book!
Review: I am enrolled in the upper division sequence of Electromagnetism as a physics major. I, along with most others in my class agree that the book needs more examples, and at least the odd numbered problems need to be printed in the back of the book. We need to study more examples to learn technique. When we attempt to solve the problem sets, we have no idea whether or not we're getting the right answers. The layout of the book is okay, and the text is written in a "matter of fact" informal style which I find unique and uncommon in textbooks of this type- but I feel I need to buy another textbook to make up for the other shortcomings.

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Summary: Readable, Intelligent, and FUNNY!
Review: This book is absolutely my favorite E&M book. I've never experienced a physics book that is NEARLY so engaging to read as well as clear and insightful. If only Jackson's graduate-level E&M book were written with such flair!