Physics - Books on Mathematical Methods

"Tomas Selnekovic" wrote in message
om...
So which one is better? ;]

Mathematical Methods of Physics and Engineering
by K. F. Riley, M. P. Hobson, S. J. Bence

or

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, 2nd Edition - Mary L. Boas

I am very familiar with Boas and not at all familiar with Riley,
Hobson, and Bence. Keep this in mind when reading my post.

Lots of opinions follow.

First, opinions about books are very subjective. One way to start a
heated debate is to say book A (e.g., Hartle's Gravity: An Introduction
to Einstein's General Relativity) is "better" than book B (e.g.,
Carroll's An Inroduction to General Relativity Spacetime and
Geometry). (Personaly, I can say that these relativity books are pitched
at about the same level, and I can say that they are very different. I
can't say that one is "better" than the other for all students and
classes.)

After glancing at the table of contents for Riley, Hobson, and Bence on
amazon.com, I see that there is much overlap between the 2 books that
you mention. However, to my eye, Riley, Hobson, and Bence appear to
cover this common material at a slower pace and in more detail. Obvious
examples of this are the treatments of probality and statistics, but it
seems to be true for all the common topics.

You may think that this is good (it often is, and it may be here) thing,
but in my experience, it's is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.
Too fast a pace and too little detail and the students are completely
lost. Too slow a pace and too much detail, and the students are bored or
completely overwhelmed by the detail.

Back to the books at hand. Riley, Hobson, and Bence has chapters on
finite groups, and on representattions of finite groups. Again this
could be good or bad. If groups are not covered by the course, and if
the student is never going to look at groups, than these chapters only
contibute to making this book more massive. My opinion on this is that
if a physics student actually neesd to study a treatment of groups,
then he/she needs to spend at *least* the better part of a semester on
the subject.

Something else that needs to be considered is the style of presentation.
Here I cannot even offer an opinion on Riley, Hobson, and Bence, but I
can say that sophomore/junior students find Boas challenging but useful.

Finally, Arken and Weber is a more advanced, standard (Should I say
classic?) reference.

Regards,
George