Book recommendation to prepare for the Physics GRE in ~40 days

Post Reply
ellipse23
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:34 am

Book recommendation to prepare for the Physics GRE in ~40 days

Post by ellipse23 » Sat Sep 12, 2015 8:20 am

I recently took the decision to apply for physics grad school and registered for the GRE test coming up on Oct. 24, a couple of days ago. The thing is I feel I'm vastly under-prepared as my academic background is in engineering. I have had only a freshman course in physics. I've been recently studying lagrangian mechanics. I'm looking for a recommendation on a book to prepare for the exam. I've looked through the forum and found that many recommend Halliday/Resnick/Walker as well as Conquering the Physics GRE by Kahn and Anderson. I was wondering, given the time (~40 days) and the basic theoretical knowledge, what's the best way to prepare for this exam.

My physics background:
Classical mechanics - Vector based classical mech, Lagrangian mechanics, don't know hamiltonian
EM - little electrostatics and magnetostatics
QM - the uncertainty principle and blackbody radiation, don't know schroedinger equation and forth
Statistical mech - almost nothing except conventional thermodynamics
Optics - basic lens optics, a little bit on interference, diffraction.
Relativity - have a qualitative idea about time dilation and length contraction.

I last saw most of these topics about 8 years ago, back in undergrad. So, I'd still need a review for these.

Sylba
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 12:54 pm

Re: Book recommendation to prepare for the Physics GRE in ~40 days

Post by Sylba » Sat Sep 26, 2015 7:26 am

Yea i need that also for the April. I have HRW but i need more especially in Thermondynamics do you guys have a suggetion for this short of time?

andymars650
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 6:35 pm

Re: Book recommendation to prepare for the Physics GRE in ~40 days

Post by andymars650 » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:06 pm

Besides Conqering the Physics GRE? That's where I'd start if I were you.

Thermal Physics by Schroeder is pretty good imho.



Post Reply