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Physics at uni - maths books suggestions?

Doing physics at uni and looking for a good simple maths book to cover the maths modules in the course.

So far I've been using Mathematical methods for physics and engineering - Riley, Hobson (highly recommended by most unis) but it's too abstract with barely any examples and poor explanations.

I know this is uni level and everything but aren't there any books that explain things like A-level maths books do? Those books (I used Heinemann ones) were fantastic, so straight forward and explained things well.

I appreciate that at degree level the content will be more difficult but I'm hoping the harder content can be presented in a very simple manner...with examples of various possible questions as well. A sort of step-by-step break down of how to approach the calculation.

All advice and suggestions much appreciated! Thanks :smile:
(edited 13 years ago)
Riley, Hobson and Bence is probably one of the best textbooks out there. You should try and learn to cope with the abstraction and lack of examples, though I feel it's not too abstract and there are plenty of examples! :P

There are of course other books out there, though they are all fairly similar in their treatment of the material. If there are things you really don't get, just make a thread on TSR and one of the clever people here will certainly be able to help you out.
When I was at Uni quite a lot of people swore by Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas. It's comprehensive, explains things well, has some good examples and exercise questions with answers.

I agree with ForGreatJustice about using TSR as a resource though... if you've got a book to go through most stuff, then use TSR whenever you come across something you don't understand, you'll have mostly all you need

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