Classical Electrodynamics

Absolutely what I was expecting or even better

For a wide eyed young grad student this text can be (Was!) quite daunting, I used the 2nd edition with the Gaussian (CGS) units. The math needed to solve the problems is presented in a haphazard way, not systematically as a mathematician should present it but just given as techniques that work with particular problems-true of the 2nd as well as the 3rd. Bad. Derivations like in Lienard-Wiechert potentials are heuristic at best. The vector potential expressed as an integral over current density divided by distance seems to follow cogently-not rigorously.. Bad. What's good? A careful reading shows the author makes no attempt at an exhaustive comprehensive treatment but usually presents a brief description which happens to be good enough sometimes and gives the reader references to the more exhaustive treatments if not. I disparagingly called this a reference book because it gave you references-not the interpretation taken by my pipe smoking, ascot wearing comrades. Well in hindsight a complete exhaustive treatment of E&M has yet to be written. It branches off to various specialties. What a grad student needs is a guide and that's what Jackson is. The teacher probably should emphasize this point. The difficulty of the problems largely stems from not interpreting the problem correctly. You have to see what's being said-maybe diagram it. Jackson for many was their first exposure to problems that couldn't be solved in closed form-series solutions. We're comfortable with this in the computer age.

The book is canonical for a graduate level course on Electrodynamics. Pretty comprehensive, albeit some topics are covered in different places scattered throughout the book. This edition is reasonably well made, considering the price. The binding is sewn, so the probability of pages falling down is low. It's paperback, but I "hardcovered" mine with chipboard and cloth and it feels awesome.

I, like many others, used this book for graduate E&M. The text is easy to follow, however, for those who haven't seen the mathematical derivation techniques for quite some time, it is best to pause and take a moment reviewing how one equation becomes the succeeding equation. Jackson often, but not always, quotes what technique was involved so it shouldn't be too hard to look up vector identities and techniques involving standard functions (orthonormal, Green, etc.) in any advanced calculus text. For those who love the challenge of solving a variety of problems, this is your book. Jackson exercises your mind in such a way that you should find yourself pulling everything and anything you can remember (as far back as those unpleasant undergraduate days) applicable to the problem at hand and piece the puzzle together until you arrive at "a" solution. During my graduate studies, we used F. Melia's "Electrodynamics" alongside Jackson. However, it was extremely cumbersome working with something in Gaussian units and MKSA at the same time between the two books, but there was a good reason to use both. Melia's book was first written to accomodate Jackson's 2nd and other E&M books written in Gaussian units, so I'm sure that the 2nd edition Jackson would work very well with Melia's book. Melia most respectfully spells out the conceptual ideas (physics) for you and Jackson will nail you with the mathematical techniques involved, especially in his problem sets. Overall, I rate this a 4/5 stars simply because the 3rd edition used MKSA units, where I think Gaussian is much more elegant. Jackson explains why he decided to do this in the preface to the 3rd edition and it's all fair game. Use this book to brush up on your mathematical techniques. To be honest, Griffith's "Introduction to Electrodynamics" would be an excellent text to use before you even decide to read Jackson's or Melia's. If you can master Griffith's book first, then it would make your life better when you adventure into Jackson's 3rd.

Quick shipping and the book arrived in better than expected condition. Thank you.

Great condition, heavy content. First year of grad school this is a staple. Wish there was a good companion to this book to go into further details when Jackson “leaves it to the reader” but overall this textbook is rather thorough.

This is just the standard textbook for graduate-level electromagnetism and electrodynamics. Obviously, it's not for the beginner. For an excellent undergraduate-level treatment of the subject, see Griffiths. The Jackson text is one I've wanted to own for a long time. It's in every physics professor's office. I've never seen another text used for graduate-level stuff. It's the standard and with good reason.

As Aristotle said: "The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet". This book is a pain, it uses difficult math, it has difficult problems but it contains everything a grad student will ever need in electrodynamics and math physics. You have to be patient, work through the book's examples and derivations and progress slowly until you eventually get it.