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Book recommendations

I am looking for good book recommendations at the level of high-school physics.

I am having in mind to find out as to what are the typical books that say IPhO competitors (say from US) would be studying.

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There is a list of books in this webpage: jyu.fi/tdk/kastdk/olympiads. Probably you will find some of the books listed in the Internet... – DaniH Mar 22 '12 at 16:05
Also, the title of the question is a bit misleading. Should it be better "Best physics books for high school physics olympiads?" – DaniH Mar 22 '12 at 16:07
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Make Community Wiki? – Manishearth♦ Mar 22 '12 at 16:09
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Book recommendation questions are pretty tightly regulated around here, and this doesn't provide anything particularly new that isn't already in one of the other book recommendation threads. – David Zaslavsky♦ Mar 22 '12 at 23:29

migrated from theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com Mar 22 '12 at 15:49

marked as duplicate by David Zaslavsky♦ Mar 22 '12 at 23:28

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2 Answers

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Russian problems are very good. Try this collection of problems.

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@Sidious Lord The above doesn't seem to physic olympiad level stuff. It looks like undergraduate stuff. – user6818 Mar 23 '12 at 22:46
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I recently solved a whole bunch of these.

  • Old IPhO problems (first ~18 olympiads--at that time they were only amongst the Soviet countries). These aren't that hard. I have a RAR file of these; I'll upload it tomorrow or something and paste a link.
  • I.E. Irodov-Problems in general physics--these are fun at first, but later you'll realise that they are more calculus-based than physics based. You may have already solved these. Note that much of the book the book is out of IPhO syllabus, especially in electrodynamics. That shouldn't stop you, but since you may not have much time, then you should choose your topics carefully (the formula list at the beginning of each section gives you an idea of in-or-out of syllabus)
  • SS Krotov- Much more fundamentals based than Irodov, and harder as well. I personally haven't solved much (don't have the book--don't have time); but whatever I have solved has been fun. But this is even more out of syllabus.
  • Use resnick for strengthening your concepts. Yes, you probably knew that.
  • Take a look at past year IPhO problems(listed on the site). These aren't too hard either, though I believe that the time factor may change stuff.
  • Most probably your country will hold a camp to train all candidates for this, but just in case: try to read up on experimental physics. Easiest thing to do would be to look at the past years IPhO experimental problems.
  • The 2012 olympiad is being hosted in Estonia. Check out their Physics cup. When I last saw these problems, I really liked them...
  • If you are trying for IPhO 2012, at this point your country will probably provide a camp(once you pass a qualifying exam). There they will provide you with books and stuff to solve, so you can just sit back and let them do the choosing :)

Just out of interest, what level have you reached?

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About "what level" I have reached - I am a graduate student in theoretical physics (string theory?). Most of your book recommendations seem to be problem sets. I was more like looking for good learning material suggestions - on that front you have only recommended the well known book by Resnick and Halliday. Anything else? – user6818 Mar 23 '12 at 22:50
@Anirbit: Really, for physics olympiads there's not much more learning one can do. All you need to be able to do is digest complicated setups and solve them--to that end, solving problems is the only way to go. As far as concepts go, the olympiads are pretty basic on concepts(high school level concepts are more than enough). Resnick covers these extremely well, so I don't think another book is needed. – Manishearth♦ Mar 24 '12 at 2:34
@Anirbit: Do you want book recommendations for an olympiad, or you just want books at that level? – Manishearth♦ Mar 24 '12 at 2:35

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