Best electromagnetism books according to redditors
We found 70 Reddit comments discussing the best electromagnetism books. We ranked the 35 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 70 Reddit comments discussing the best electromagnetism books. We ranked the 35 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
The two "classic" intro physics texts are Kleppner and Kolenkow for mechanics and Purcell for E/M. These are pretty standard for honors intro physics classes across the US.
Both are good books which are considerably more theoretical and rigorous than the typical "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" that I'm guessing you're using (and will not leave results like the ones you give unjustified, for example).
Nevertheless, I don't think you're going to find many physics textbooks written with the strict, precise logic of a proper math book (at the undergraduate level, at least). Physicists are simply interested in different things than mathematicians.
Also, remember that physics is a science, and it is informed by both logical deductions AND experiments.
electricity and magnetism by purcell and morin
edit: as a counter to the griffiths suggestion, i have read good things about modern electrodynamics by zangwill, but i have no personal experience with the book.
Take a charge just sitting there, and suddenly whack it. A moving charge has a different electric field than a stationary one, it's strongest in the plane perpendicular to the motion. The field lines for this moving charge will be straight, but squished towards that plane.
But if you're a light year away, you can't know that instantly. You'll still see the same field that the stationary charge made. The information that the charge is now moving propagates out at the speed of light, so you get a shell moving outward in which the field suddenly shifts, from the stationary charge field to the moving charge field. That is a light wave.
You can also see from this description how the intensity depends on what angle you're at, and why it depends on acceleration (the faster you accelerate, the thinner the shell/wave and the bigger the change in E, so the big E in the shell is even bigger).
Why do you need acceleration? If the charge has been uniformly moving forever, the field will be "correct" everywhere. Of course, if you suddenly stop it, you'll launch another wave. If you move the charge sinusoidally, you'd get pretty much what you'd expect.
I can't draw a nice picture, but this is basically what's on the cover of the latest edition of Morin/Purcell E&M. That book is where I heard about this nice intuitive picture, which is great for people like me who can't do advanced math. :D
http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026
Easiest introduction (too simple, but a great overview):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-plasma-physics-controlled-fusion/dp/0306413329/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973723&sr=8-1&keywords=francis+chen+plasma
Better introduction (actually has real mathematics, this is like the Chen book but better for people who want to learn actual plasma physics because it doesn't baby you):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-R-J-Goldston/dp/075030183X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973766&sr=8-1&keywords=goldston+plasma
Great introduction, and FREE:
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html
Good magnetohydronamics book:
http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-MHD-Jeffrey-P-Freidberg/dp/1107006252/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974045&sr=8-1&keywords=ideal+magnetohydrodynamics
Great waves book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Plasmas-Thomas-H-Stix/dp/0883188597/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974079&sr=8-1&keywords=stix+waves
Computational shit because half of plasma physics is computing that shit:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Plasma-Physics-Applications-Astrophysics/dp/0813342112/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974113&sr=8-2&keywords=tajima+plasma
http://www.amazon.com/Plasma-Physics-Computer-Simulation-Series/dp/0750310251/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974148&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsall+langdon
Then there are also great papers, and I posted some links to papers in a previous post, but if you're asking to start, you want to start with Chen (and if it's too simple for you, move onto Fitzpatrick or Goldston). I also forgot to mention that Bellan and Ichimaru also have great books for introductory plasma physics.
EDIT:
I'd also like to add that I love you because this subreddit almost never ever mentions plasma physics.
Can someone point me to a movie of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnetoelastic-Interactions-Springer-Natural-Philosophy/dp/3642873987 ? I can't find it in IMDB. Thanks.
Books! Quantum mechanics in a nutshell or Quantum field theory in a nutshell
<3 Merry Christmas.
I'd like to give you my two cents as well on how to proceed here. If nothing else, this will be a second opinion. If I could redo my physics education, this is how I'd want it done.
If you are truly wanting to learn these fields in depth I cannot stress how important it is to actually work problems out of these books, not just read them. There is a certain understanding that comes from struggling with problems that you just can't get by reading the material. On that note, I would recommend getting the Schaum's outline to whatever subject you are studying if you can find one. They are great books with hundreds of solved problems and sample problems for you to try with the answers in the back. When you get to the point you can't find Schaums anymore, I would recommend getting as many solutions manuals as possible. The problems will get very tough, and it's nice to verify that you did the problem correctly or are on the right track, or even just look over solutions to problems you decide not to try.
Basics
I second Stewart's Calculus cover to cover (except the final chapter on differential equations) and Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Not all sections from HRW are necessary, but be sure you have the fundamentals of mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermal physics down at the level of HRW.
Once you're done with this move on to studying differential equations. Many physics theorems are stated in terms of differential equations so really getting the hang of these is key to moving on. Differential equations are often taught as two separate classes, one covering ordinary differential equations and one covering partial differential equations. In my opinion, a good introductory textbook to ODEs is one by Morris Tenenbaum and Harry Pollard. That said, there is another book by V. I. Arnold that I would recommend you get as well. The Arnold book may be a bit more mathematical than you are looking for, but it was written as an introductory text to ODEs and you will have a deeper understanding of ODEs after reading it than your typical introductory textbook. This deeper understanding will be useful if you delve into the nitty-gritty parts of classical mechanics. For partial differential equations I recommend the book by Haberman. It will give you a good understanding of different methods you can use to solve PDEs, and is very much geared towards problem-solving.
From there, I would get a decent book on Linear Algebra. I used the one by Leon. I can't guarantee that it's the best book out there, but I think it will get the job done.
This should cover most of the mathematical training you need to move onto the intermediate level physics textbooks. There will be some things that are missing, but those are usually covered explicitly in the intermediate texts that use them (i.e. the Delta function). Still, if you're looking for a good mathematical reference, my recommendation is Lua. It may be a good idea to go over some basic complex analysis from this book, though it is not necessary to move on.
Intermediate
At this stage you need to do intermediate level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal physics at the very least. For electromagnetism, Griffiths hands down. In my opinion, the best pedagogical book for intermediate classical mechanics is Fowles and Cassidy. Once you've read these two books you will have a much deeper understanding of the stuff you learned in HRW. When you're going through the mechanics book pay particular attention to generalized coordinates and Lagrangians. Those become pretty central later on. There is also a very old book by Robert Becker that I think is great. It's problems are tough, and it goes into concepts that aren't typically covered much in depth in other intermediate mechanics books such as statics. I don't think you'll find a torrent for this, but it is 5 bucks on Amazon. That said, I don't think Becker is necessary. For quantum, I cannot recommend Zettili highly enough. Get this book. Tons of worked out examples. In my opinion, Zettili is the best quantum book out there at this level. Finally for thermal physics I would use Mandl. This book is merely sufficient, but I don't know of a book that I liked better.
This is the bare minimum. However, if you find a particular subject interesting, delve into it at this point. If you want to learn Solid State physics there's Kittel. Want to do more Optics? How about Hecht. General relativity? Even that should be accessible with Schutz. Play around here before moving on. A lot of very fascinating things should be accessible to you, at least to a degree, at this point.
Advanced
Before moving on to physics, it is once again time to take up the mathematics. Pick up Arfken and Weber. It covers a great many topics. However, at times it is not the best pedagogical book so you may need some supplemental material on whatever it is you are studying. I would at least read the sections on coordinate transformations, vector analysis, tensors, complex analysis, Green's functions, and the various special functions. Some of this may be a bit of a review, but there are some things Arfken and Weber go into that I didn't see during my undergraduate education even with the topics that I was reviewing. Hell, it may be a good idea to go through the differential equations material in there as well. Again, you may need some supplemental material while doing this. For special functions, a great little book to go along with this is Lebedev.
Beyond this, I think every physicist at the bare minimum needs to take graduate level quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. For quantum, I recommend Cohen-Tannoudji. This is a great book. It's easy to understand, has many supplemental sections to help further your understanding, is pretty comprehensive, and has more worked examples than a vast majority of graduate text-books. That said, the problems in this book are LONG. Not horrendously hard, mind you, but they do take a long time.
Unfortunately, Cohen-Tannoudji is the only great graduate-level text I can think of. The textbooks in other subjects just don't measure up in my opinion. When you take Classical mechanics I would get Goldstein as a reference but a better book in my opinion is Jose/Saletan as it takes a geometrical approach to the subject from the very beginning. At some point I also think it's worth going through Arnold's treatise on Classical. It's very mathematical and very difficult, but I think once you make it through you will have as deep an understanding as you could hope for in the subject.
If I were you, I would study from Purcell (Berkeley physics course volume number 2). https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026 This is the best to begin with. And DO all the problems! After that if you still want better understanding, Griffiths - Introduction to electrodynamics is very good. Do not touch Feynman or Landau until you complete those 2, they are very bad for beginers but after you are familiar with the subject they are true gems.
For freshman/ sophmore honors EM in the US, I think that's A-level in Britain or something? Anyways, Purcell and Morin's Electricity and Magnetism is absolutely great.
Basically it was written by Purcell, Nobel Prize winner in 1952, and uses special relativity and a few other assumptions to derive all of electricity and magnetism, rather than the other way around. Morin came along in the third edition, added a bunch of problems and changed the units from Gaussian to MKS. If your mechanics course covers some special relativity, I strongly recommend this book.
Warning, vector calculus is necessary, Purcell gives an overview, but it's not a full treatment.
Third edition with Morin's extra problems
If you are looking for a E & M textbook, I would absolutely recommend Electricity and Magnetism by Purcell (https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1517530006&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=electricity+and+magnetism).
https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026
maybe? or griffiths
You're English is great.
I'd like to reemphasize /u/Plaetean's great suggestion of learning the math. That's so important and will make your later career much easier. Khan Academy seems to go all through differential equations. All of the more advanced topics they have differential and integral calculus of the single variable, multivariable calculus, ordinary differential equations, and linear algebra are very useful in physics.
As to textbooks that cover that material I've heard Div, Grad, Curl for multivariable/vector calculus is good, as is Strang for linear algebra. Purcell an introductory E&M text also has an excellent discussion of the curl.
As for introductory physics I love Purcell's E&M. I'd recommend the third edition to you as although it uses SI units, which personally I dislike, it has far more problems than the second, and crucially has many solutions to them included, which makes it much better for self study. As for Mechanics there are a million possible textbooks, and online sources. I'll let someone else recommend that.
Some textbooks are good, some are bad. I was once so furious with how bad my textbook was (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Solid-Physics-Charles-Kittel/dp/047141526X), that I collected a list of bad reviews to share with my professor. Read some of the reviews, it's cathartic.
Anyway, despite that experience I still think textbooks are good. They have always been my primary learning tool throughout school. Yes I've used the internet for help with specific problems and questions, but I don't think absorbing the core principles of subject works as well through the internet.
A good textbook is a highly polished document with information presented in an order that should allow for a natural progression. Most online sources of knowledge do not start "at the beginning" or reach "the end."
Also textbooks are self consistent, so you won't experience changes in notation from chapter to chapter, whereas if you skip from one yt vid to another you might suffer a delay due to the two creators using different approaches / notation.
We used this: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Solid-Physics-Charles-Kittel/dp/047141526X (the older editions are dirt cheap). But I know a lot of people hate on it.
There was a thread discussing other options a while ago, I'll try to find it.
https://www.amazon.com/Vibrations-Waves-P-French/dp/8123909144
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-03sc-physics-iii-vibrations-and-waves-fall-2016/resource-index/
I said:
>A list of physics equations does not a physicist make.
You said:
>Of course, I totally agree!
My reaction: GREAT!
Then you said:
>I am looking for all of those laws either in PDF format or On a website where I can copy/paste.
&#3232;_&#3232;
Having a PDF of all the equations of all of physics wouldn't provide you with any understanding of any of them. You would be just as clueless as you are now, except you would've spent a great deal of effort compiling a PDF filled with equations you don't understand.
You appear to have missed the point of my post:
>Until you are prepared to sit down with a textbook and learn Newton's laws and the glycolysis cycle, you'll never really understand science.
I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm really not, but you have the kind of wide-eyed innocence that leads to just enough knowledge to be dangerous, but not enough to realize how little you understand.
Here is my favorite introductory physics book. In it, you'll learn Newton's laws and how to apply them. I'm also a fan of Volume 2, where you'll learn about electricity and magnetism. I'm not familiar with the newest editions, but I liked the first edition so feel free to pick them up used. Or heck, pirate the PDFs from somewhere.
You'll need a good grasp of calculus for both books, but if you seriously want to teach yourself physics, that is the kind of work that it takes. I don't have any good opinions on whats a good calculus book unfortunately, but I suggest you make it through derivatives and integrals before starting the physics books.
What I would suggest:
Introduction to Modern Optics by Fowles. It's short and to the point.
The Oxford Solid State Basics by Simon. The author also has lectures posted on his website that are fantastic. Additionally, Roald Hoffmann has a series of papers that introduce solid state concepts that are useful for chemists. They're very worthwhile reads. Here, here, and here.
Computational Physics by Newman. I find this really easy to read and understand. A lot of people around here recommend it.
A book that I personally like is "Electromagnetic Fields" by Roald Wangsness.
https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Fields-2nd-Roald-Wangsness/dp/0471811866
I find is to be more of a predecessor to Jackson than Griffiths. It goes through the same topics, but I find in a bit more structured level (in some aspects). He does not discuss the dirac delta function (for some reason) so Griffiths is nice to supplement this book. The problems are equally challenging, some more so, and some more interesting. Check it out if you can, I think it deserves more praise.
It was two different books 3 years ago for Physics for Engineers and Physics 2 for engineers. It could be a bit different now. Surefire way to tell is to email the Prof, or ask next week.
The Physics 1 book came with a code to do homework online via WebAssign, which was required. I didn't buy the physical book, I just bought the code that came with an e-book from the website. Physics 1 has been the same class for literally over a hundred years, so any text book will work if you're tight on money. Just be sure you can do the homework.
Physics 2 was a different book. The cover was black and green, with a little diagram of a red ball with a grid plane and spirally things around it. My class didn't have online homework. My class was also an experimental structure at the time, I forgot the acronym for it, but our lab and lecture were blended into one session. I'm pretty sure the normal style class used the same books.
Edit: /u/motsu35 remembered the title. This was my Physics 2 book. It looks like there is a part 1 which covers Physics 1, but I'm not sure if it's the book we used, since I never had the physical copy.
Sometimes professors want to try out a newer book, or use a different system of units, or place emphasis on different topics. It could also be a price thing (I certainly would rather write my own notes than make all my students pay $150 for some specialized textbook).
My graduate E&M was out of Garg because the professor wanted a book that used Gaussian units and went in a specific order. The fact that the book was an awful reference for someone trying to learn the topic was entirely ignored by the professor.
But I've also had professors that went out of their way to find good books to learn from even if it meant more work for them in tailoring the class to a topic order they didn't like.
Brush up on mathematical methods for physics. Learn Linear Algebra, Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus, Complex Analysis, and Tensor Analysis. A good book would be this: http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Sciences-Mary/dp/0471198269/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
Classical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Third-Course-Theoretical-Physics/dp/0750628960/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625026&amp;sr=1-7
E&M: http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Fields-Roald-K-Wangsness/dp/0471811866/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
or http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-3rd-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625100&amp;sr=1-1
Statistical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Statistical-Thermal-Physics-Frederick/dp/1577666127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1291625184&amp;sr=1-1
Quantum Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-R-Shankar/dp/0306447908/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625261&amp;sr=1-4
Amazon. here
There are a lot of good suggestions in here, but I'm wondering if any of them are really applicable to what you want to do. An electrodynamics book like Griffiths will come at magnetism from the perspective of field and/or tensor mathematics. A solid state book like Kittel or Ashcroft and Mermin would come at it starting from a phenomenological perspective and moving into things like local moments and band structure. I'm guessing here, but it seems like what you want is more of an idea of the interaction of magnetism and materials or observable phenomena. Either of those approaches would get you there, but it wouldn't be the most direct approach and it would be a lot more work than you need to put in if that's all you want. They would also both require a lot more math than it seems like you're really comfortable with, and both topics are complex enough that physics/chemistry/MSE students struggle with them without good instructors (and sometimes even with them).
Instead of starting with any of those, I'd suggest you look at some lower level, phenomenology and observation based works. Nicola Spaldin's Magnetic Materials: Fundamentals and Applications might be a good place to start. It's pretty low level: I think a motivated undergrad could deal with it after taking a year of freshman physics, but I think that's what you want, at least to start with. It gives a good overview of different kinds of magnetism and the different kinds of magnetic materials, as well as field generation and detection.
Incidentally, if you decide to be a masochist and go with a solid state book, I think Ashcroft & Mermin is a better text than Kittel. Kittel spent 50 years and eight editions trying to fit the new developments in the field into the book without making it significantly thicker, so Ashcroft has a narrower scope but covers what it does have in more depth. I find the writing style clearer and more accessible as well.
I didn't like the Kittel book, and we used this Steve Simon book for my solid state course at Uni.
It's one of the funniest textbooks I've ever had, actually. Lots of little comedic asides.
However, he also has basically the whole book on his website for free anyway (with some errors that are resolved in the printed version)
I'd recommend Steven Simon's Oxford Solid State Basics. https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779
Used it in parallel with Kittel.
&#x200B;
https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779 It's a fairly inexpensive book no matter the currency
A couple common undergrad/early grad texts are Marder and Ashcroft and Mermin . Try and read some review articles about some of the topics you hear about. This is an interesting article about the unique perspective of cond matter and why it might be important
Yes, but it's a mess.
You have to write a formal lab report every week, and include screenshots of every measurement. Also, for every measurement and calculation you have to do an error propagation.
It's literally pages and pages of (scaled down) screenshots and calculations.It's extremely tedious and time-consuming.
They should have used a platform such as RealTime Physics with informal laboratory reports where you just "fill in the blank" inside of the report. That's what you would be doing at community college.
http://www.amazon.com/RealTime-Learning-Laboratories-Electricity-Magnetism-ebook/dp/B008KVCC2U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1397239826&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=realtime+physics
Not metal or conductive ones. It doesn't matter if they're rounded, for substantial purposes; what matters are standing waves damaging the microwave parts at the other end.
"Free" electrons on the surface of the metal completely follow any incoming electric field (within a = F/m) (see Quora), so the energy is still there and will begin to be absorbed by something. Putting a dielectric--an absorbing material in this case--over the metal surface will slow the phase of the outgoing wave and also absorb energy, preventing the formation of these bathtub-like standing waves. This is what we learned and were taught in electrodynamics.
Arcing is a little bit separate and happens because charges like to get away from the each other. A small radius of curvature (aka sharp) means locally fewer free electrons will be gathered (since the positive charges in the nucleus don't move, generally), and thus a a net-positive "landing spot" is created.
You can cause an arc in two seconds, I know I have done it with a spoon handle that I forgot, sticking out. However, I believe the damage from arcing would be different and two-fold: (1) locally on spot where it begins and ends, by pitting (e.g. on the spoon and roof), and (2) RF energy damage to sensitive electronics reachable by the waves and not protected by an RF/conductive shield.
I recommend Marder It assumes undergraduate knowledge of CM, EM, QM, SM and builds on that. It's also quite hefty, but I think he gives a chapter plan.
This pup right here
There is no such thing as Einstinean 4D space. The thing is completely insane. Einstein is/was mainly pushed by the (((media))).
https://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Reexamined-Leon-Brillouin/dp/0124337783
https://www.amazon.com/Causality-Electromagnetic-Induction-Gravitation-Gravitational/dp/0917406230/
Matter/space are both polarities of one thing. They are inextricable not time which is just a measurement. You can't have space without matter. Time is simply the measurement of movement. Objects are born, reach, maturity and then die in a cycle. That is what time measures.
Read Walter Russell. Real science which is based on the never ending movement between the two polarities underlying existence. Masculine/feminine, contraction/expansion, yin/yang, centripetal/centrifugal. Order collapses into decay and is reborn.
Hi, I'm about to start a PhD in computational plasma physics in September, concentrating on simulating turbulent transport in the divertor region and the scrape-off layer of tokamaks.
I won a bit of money from my undergrad institution, and I thought it would be fitting to use it to buy some reference textbooks for my PhD. However, although it's easy to find books, it's not so easy to find good reviews of them. I haven't done much plasma physics before but I will be having a lot of lectures on it in September, so I think more advanced books would be more useful, as I will be recommended plenty of resources for the more basic stuff.
Some of the books I've been looking at are:
but I'm open to any suggestions. I'm particularly interested in books about computational methods, and maybe also about scientific programming in C++.
Thanks!
Real answers for real high school student interesting in the conventional path to a conventional first course in quantum physics. Much of this advice applies more to the American school system, as that's where I was educated.
You're right, the first job is to get to calculus. Khan Academy is a good place for that! It's a bit messy, but just follow the knowledge web they have set up until you get to the topic of limits, which is the front door to introductory calculus. Along the way you'll also learn algebra and geometry. As soon as you can and as soon as you're ready for it, try and take a proper calculus class in your school. If you're in the United States, try to take AP Calculus.
If possible, take a physics class at your high school. If it's a reasonably big school, they'll have an algebra-based physics class and may even offer a college-level physics course that uses calculus (if you're in the United States, this will be called AP Physics C). Take this as soon as possible! If it's not offered, you may be able to take the equivalent course at a nearby college before you leave high school.
If you've done all of this right, you should know how to calculate things called derivatives and integrals, manipulate things called sequences and series, and understand the the basic rules of mechanics (force, momentum, energy, etc) and the electric and magnetic fields phrased in terms of calculus. In the language of most American universities, you now know Physics I & II and Calculus I & II.
Physics-wise, the usual next step is to take a course on waves, vibrations, and oscillations (see this table or contents) and / or a survey course on modern physics (see this standard text).
Math-wise, the next step is to take classes usually called
The simplest way to do this is just to take these courses in a college or university, but there are also great online resources. I can personally endorse MIT OCW and Paul's Online Notes. Many schools also offer surveys of applied math at this level (with names like "mathematical physics" or "mathematical methods") that cover the basics of partial differential equations, fourier series, and more linear algebra / multivariable calculus / ODEs. See this book by Boas for a good idea of the content.
Once you know all of that, you're ready to ready a real textbook on quantum physics. Some of the usual standards for a physicists' first course are the books by Griffiths or Shankar.
Edited for link formatting
TL;DR To go the physicist route, learn the following through school if you can swing it, but independent learning is possible and good resources exist online:
Then these three in any order:
Then this, if you're going the usual physicist route:
On the physics side, you should take
and then one or both of
I am actually struggling with this same question. I just started studying electromagnetic theory, and Feynman's entire book on this subject doesn't even mention photons!
As far as I can tell, there are different theories of light, there's Maxwell's field theory and there's the quantum theory which includes photons. As for which one light "really" is, it sounds like that's more in the realm of philosophy, and physicists just use the theory that works for a given situation.
Purcell: http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Edward-M-Purcell/dp/1107014026
I'm not sure what you mean by a "field study". If you mean experiments, then yes, there are likely hundreds or thousands, as this is well-established theory that predicts numerous results in condensed matter physics; e.g. electronic properties of metals, superconductivity, superfluidity, etc.
This topic can be found in any of the standard texts on many-body physics, a subject also often referred to as condensed-matter quantum field theory. My favorites are "AGD" (i.e. the guys who invented this technique), Mahan, and Coleman (which is the most pedagogical of the three).
If you're looking for something to Google, you might want to try "finite temperature field theory" and "Matsubara formalism".
I'm not sure what your level is, but this is pretty technical stuff; I literally never heard of these concepts (other than randomly hearing the phrase "imaginary time") until taking a graduate course on many-body theory. I honestly don't know of any popular books that discuss finite temperature QFT in detail (not that I'm particularly well-versed in the popular literature, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that usually makes its way into the usual "multiverse/wormhole/strings/black holes" books). If you want to know more in detail, but don't know what a time evolution operator is, you'll need to learn basic nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; R. Shankar's book is a good way to learn about that, though Griffiths is a bit more accessible.
Unfortunately, a good understanding of quantum mechanics requires a basic understanding of classical physics.
I would recommend "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukov. https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/0060959681/ref=sr_1_1 "6 Easy Pieces" by Richard P. Feineman https://www.amazon.com/Six-Easy-Pieces-Essentials-Explained/dp/0465025277/ref=sr_1_1? My personal favorite is "Understanding Physics" by Isaac Asimov https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Physics-Volumes-Magnetism-Electricity/dp/B000RG7YPG/ref=sr_1_2? HTH
The Feynman Lectures may or may not be what you want to go through (they're better for reference than for learning), but If $20 for Volume 1, $8 for Volume 2, and $10 for Volume 3 is too expensive for you, you may not be sufficiently committed.
For a bit more detail, check out:
Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory by George Gamow
The Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory by Max Planck
The other well known book is ashcroft and mermin http://www.amazon.com/Solid-State-Physics-Neil-Ashcroft/dp/0030839939 which has better reviews but still isn't regarded as amazing or anything
http://www.amazon.com/The-Oxford-Solid-State-Basics/dp/0199680779/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0PR4FET4HSKRNNR4Z1AR seems promising by the reviews.
I don't know how you're this uninformed. Read both these books and tell me which one is harder.