Rating: 
Summary: It has its uses
Review: I write this review because I believe the other two reviews in the customer section give the wrong impression. The material in Arfken should be known by any beginning graduate student in physics. If however one is not familiar with all the topics, one should study an undergraduate textbook concerned with the area of deficiency (which ever is most popular for that subject). Arfken is then best used to jar the memory with examples that are often abridged examples from the aforementioned undergraduate texts. As for an undergraduate taking a course where Arfken is the primary text, I'm confused. Obviously you should know everything in Arfken but he doesn't get to the meat of any given subject. You might as well get cliff notes for physics. (Schaums)
Rating:
Summary: Useless for learning the math you need, ok as reference
Review: I've tried to use Arfken's book for learning new mathematical concepts. For this it is totally useless. There are only few examples, and they are not very informative. Important theorems are sometimes only quickly mentioned, some are only implicitly suggested. And the exercises seem to expect a whole lot more mathematical knowledge than the text gives. Of course there are no answers to most of the exercises. Especially undergraduates (at least not the very brilliant ones like me) should really, REALLY get themselves some other book. Try related titles from Schaum's Outline series, for example. However, I've also used this book later on as a reference text when I've forgotten some concept that I had already learned earlier. For this purpose Arfken is ok. Usually you find the information you are looking for quickly and find a formula or two you can use. But all things considered it really isn't worth the money. Arfken is a terrible example of the way text books should not be written.
Rating:
Summary: Needs help
Review: Long and short of it is that the book touches on so many subjects that it really doesn't spend enough time on any one. This makes it almost impossible to learn from it on your own. If you get a good professor to fill in the holes this will make a nice book to serve as a reminder or guide....but otherwise its probably a waste of money.
Rating: 
Summary: Could this be a publisher's mis-advertizing?
Review: Looks like most negative comments were prompted by the fact that this book is advertized as a textbook, which it certainly isn't, at least not for Physics. On the other side people seem to be content wiht using it as reference, expecially in hi-tech engineering work whihc more often then not can't be sharp classified as on or the other classical academic discipline. I remember that Russians used to have separate math references for "engineers" and "scientists", so maybe this book should be called "Math Compendium for Hi-Tech Enginners" and then people wouldn't be buying it for wrong reasons and then feel cheated.
Rating: 
Summary: A excellent book only for excellent students !
Review: Mathematics - the queen of science ! while physicists deal with more creativity they need mathematical tools to back their conjectures ! Of course when I say physicists I don't mean to say people who possess PhD's to show off but the ones who can create `physics and physicists' ! This book is for hardcore math wizards, ones that are more prone towards solving problems of the likes of Putnam exam and IMO/IPhO kinds. So if you are upto the challenge BUY it, else it's much beneficial for you to buy a book which exemplifies each and every theorem simplistically. **WARNING** you need to have a very strong background in Maths to be able to comprehend some stuff, so try this book after acquiring the requisite from some other easier books. Only then can you extract gold from this one !
Rating: 
Summary: An undergraduate review
Review: My instructor chose Arfken as the text for our Mathematical Physics class. He has a high opinion of the book, although he did not require it to be read and did not assign any of the exercises. Rather than using Arfken, most of the students in my class used various mathematics and physics books from the university library. My opinion of Arfken is that it is so condensed that it is not understandable to undergraduates. You need to consult other texts extensively to fill in the gaps. For example, Arfken develops tensor analysis on pages 126 thru 130, 5 pages total. My copy of Applications of Tensor Analysis by McConnell does the same on it's first 171 pages. I hesitate to say that Arfken is useless, but you can draw your own conclusion from my last example. Arfken is so abbreviated that it is not useful to the undergraduate as a reference either, in my opinion. Perhaps it is useful to persons who are familiar with the subject matter in advance, I am not sure. Were one or a group of people to flush this book out it might be more useful, but it would no doubt become many volumes.
Rating: 
Summary: The most widely-used book ever published on the subject.
Review: Over 100,000 students and professionals have used this book as a text and reference. The fourth edition of this famous book provides thorough coverage of the important mathematics needed for upper-division, graduate, and professional study in physics and engineering. Following more than 30 years of successful class testing, this book is considered the standard publishing reference on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Only for those who are already familiar with the material
Review: So you know who's writing this, I'm a grad student in Mechanical Engineering. This book is definitely not for anyone who is not already familiar with the subjects in the book, especially if you're in a class that uses this as the textbook since there is not enough explanation in the book to do the problems. Other reviewers have recommended using this as a reference and getting other books if you're trying to learn the material for the first time. I have to agree with that since this was my first exposure to subjects like tensors and the "explanations" in the book are disgustingly incomplete. There are several errors (especially in the problem sets) that were not in previous editions. This is unfortunate as one would expect a text to have less errors as time goes on. It wouldn't be a problem except that I can't find any sort of erratta page on the publisher's website or anywhere else. Three stars as a reference book, 1/2 star as a textbook.
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic but thats all
Review: The best thing that can be said about this book is that it reads like some kind of encyclopedia of physics math ( and not a complete one at that). There is a lot here but the author is another one of those who believes the student is best served by working it out for himself. That may be true but it is also the easy way out for textbook writers and teachers. Also, the course should at least be set up so that the student can find out the correct answer. My experience is that the mathematical physics courses that use this book are not. At the time this book first came out there was no other suitable book. That, unfortunately, is how so many of the physics texts become classics, not by being useful or good. Also, the treatment is mostly of very classical mathematical physics. I pity the student who attempts to get a good background in group theory from this book for use in GR or particle theory. Better books exist nowadays partly as a reaction to this book. Find one you like and use it.
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic but thats all
Review: The best thing that can be said about this book is that it reads like some kind of encyclopedia of physics math ( and not a complete one at that). There is a lot here but the author is another one of those who believes the student is best served by working it out for himself. That may be true but it is also the easy way out for textbook writers and teachers. Also, the course should at least be set up so that the student can find out the correct answer. My experience is that the mathematical physics courses that use this book are not. At the time this book first came out there was no other suitable book. That, unfortunately, is how so many of the physics texts become classics, not by being useful or good. Also, the treatment is mostly of very classical mathematical physics. I pity the student who attempts to get a good background in group theory from this book for use in GR or particle theory. Better books exist nowadays partly as a reaction to this book. Find one you like and use it.
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