Electricity and magnetism

What Hacker News says

1. molteanuDec 2025
   I never understood the appeal of Feynman and these Lectures. It has been a constant topic for years around here.

   For example, the Electricity and Magnetism book by Purcell is phenomenal but it is hardly ever mentioned. To quote wikipedia,

   Electricity and Magnetism is a standard textbook in electromagnetism originally written by Nobel laureate Edward Mills Purcell in 1963. Along with David Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, this book is one of the most widely adopted undergraduate textbooks in electromagnetism. A Sputnik-era project funded by the National Science Foundation grant, the book is influential for its use of relativity in the presentation of the subject at the undergraduate level. In 1999, it was noted by Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. that the book was widely adopted and has many foreign translations.

   Something mysterious is going on here.

   Show morethread
2. divbzeroDec 2025
   Electricity and Magnetism by Purcell is one of my favorites too, especially the chapter on “The Fields of Moving Charges”.
   thread
3. BostonianDec 2023
   The book "Electricity and Magnetism 3rd Edition" by Edward M. Purcell, revised by David J. Morin, has been used for the introductory E&M class for physics majors at Harvard and other universities. It's a classic but is not easy.
   thread
4. flurlyFeb 2023
   Here are some books you may find helpful on these topics:

   "University Physics" by Francis Sears and Mark Zemansky "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by David J. Griffiths "Electricity and Magnetism" by Edward M. Purcell

   thread
5. BostonianSep 2021
   Physics -- paper and pencil, in the late 1980s, at Harvard. Books such as Purcell, "Electricity and Magnetism", Reif, "Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics", Liboff, "Introductory Quantum Mechanics", Sakurai, "Modern Quantum Mechanics", Ashcroft and Mermin, "Solid State Physics", Brown and Churchill, "Complex Variables and Applications", and "Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems".
   thread
6. aj7Jun 2020
   Yes indeed. Purcell’s Electricity and Magnetism book is so good, I could understand E & M from a sophisticated point of you even though I could do vector calculus only on very symmetrical situations. And Kleppner/Kolenkow books and Anthony French books are well written.
   thread