Modern Classical Physics

"Remarkable for its scope and authority, this text offers a new vision of the 'theoretical minimum' of classical physics that all physicists should know, a vision that I hope will revitalize the curricula of many physics departments. On my own shelf it will replace half a dozen dog-eared reference texts."--Scott Tremaine, Institute for Advanced Study"In an era of fragmentation and specialization, Thorne and Blandford have given us an audacious and splendid grand unification of classical physics, using geometry and space-time as synthesizing principles. Complicated fields as diverse as optics, elasticity, and plasma physics fall to their masterful pedagogy."--William H. Press, University of Texas at Austin"Comprehensive, concise, and coherent, this is a marvelous summary of the essence of classical physics, somewhat reminiscent of the classic texts of Landau and Lifshitz, and an essential part of any physicist's toolkit. Classical physics is not 'old' physics; it contains many of the most interesting challenges to our understanding of nature and it stands (as in this book) in consistent juxtaposition with quantum physics. This book includes many interesting and often difficult problems, and it will particularly benefit students in the astrophysical and related sciences."--David Stevenson, Caltech"This is an excellent resource for students and researchers seeking introductions to important subjects neglected by most modern physics curricula."--Jeremy Goodman, Princeton University"This text is a tour de force. I cannot overemphasize how big a contribution to teaching it will be. It is also likely to instantly become a desk reference for a large part of the research physics community."--Steinn Sigurdsson, Pennsylvania State University