My Goodreads Review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
I read about half of this but realized it’s not exactly the greatest introductory text to classical mechanics.
Landau seems to have attained god-like status among many physicists for his “great books,” but these are really only great in retrospect, as unifiers of concepts once you’ve learned them elsewhere. His books generally lack motivation or links to natural phenomena. That said, if you’re looking for an introduction to any topics in physics, avoid Landau.
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True, it sucks to learn from, but once you know the material it’s fantastic as a clean review of the material. But I wouldn’t tar all Landau with the same brush; Fields is very readable (at least the first 2/3, which I’ve covered) and QM and SP are good as references.
Absolutely right about the complete lack of any experimental motivation, though; the quote I heard was “Everything is wrong in Landau, except the answers.”
Glad to hear positive notes on Fields. Despite my reluctance to join the Church of Landau, I was looking forward to giving Fields a try this fall.