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Re: Essential Physics Books

"RAUBER, JOEL" wrote:

Generally I like John D's list,
http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/books.html

:-)

however, IMO

*) Misner / Thorne / Wheeler
Gravitation

*) Jackson
Classical Electrodynamics

are probably not that appropriate for a two year college situation.

1) I don't expect everybody at WITCC to read Jackson and
MTW cover-to-cover. That's why they are library books
not required textbooks. I don't expect everybody to read
the Encyclopedia Britannica cover-to-cover either (although
I know people who have done so under similar circumstances).

2) One hopes that sooner or later there will be a student
at WITCC who asks "suppose I continued in physics for more
than two years ... what would come next?" and it would be
nice to have one or two landmarks in that direction.

Unless of course, you have lots of book money to burn.

IMHO the cost of having such things on the shelf is small
compared to the cost of not having them on the occasions
when they are wanted.

But there may be other choices

Such as?

for spending money that would be better and more likely
to be read by students.

The library is for faculty as well as students. And if
it really is a _community_ college there may be drop-ins
from the wider community.