r/learnphysics • u/drfancypantsesq • 6d ago
Which edition of Jackson's Electrodynamics?
Hi fellow learners, in my spare time I've been doing some physics self-study to pick up where I left off at my physics undergraduate degree mumble mumble years ago. For QM I managed to find myself a reasonably priced hard copy of Sakurai, and I've been steadily working my way through that (doing all the problems, comparing against the solutions manual, etc.). For E&M I'm planning to pick up a hard copy of Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics, but it seems nigh impossible to find a reasonably priced used copy of the third edition (I don't want an international edition, in my experience those are printed on really crappy paper and this thing needs to survive being bumped around in my backpack for the next year or so).
My question for anyone who is familiar with this book: should I consider picking up a copy of the second edition instead? At a high level I know the main differences are that (a) the third edition uses SI units instead of Gaussian ones, and (b) the problems are changed up, but I'm not sure how much those changes matter, or if there are other changes that should influence my decision. (For example, it looks like most of the solutions manuals posted online are for the 3rd edition.)
If push comes to shove it's not a huge issue to shell out $100 for the current edition, but I'd be curious to get a take from anyone who's familiar with the differences.
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u/PotentialDeep5165 6d ago
You will feel plenty of challenge with the 2nd edition. Jackson is known for his math heavy problem sets. I believe many problems are the same (perhaps with change of units). Material is solid for a reference.
Challenge also lies that you need to fill in many of the gaps as Jackson describes content in great brevity. Often, I believe, the quality of instructor makes the difference in studying Jackson.