Talk:List of textbooks on classical mechanics and quantum mechanics

Why this combination of topics?

These lists may be useful, but can anyone give insight into why this particular pair of topics is linked in a single article? I can understand that separate articles for classical and quantum mechanics books could be too small, but why then don't we have a broader page like "List of textbooks in the core physics curriculum", with sections on classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and maybe others? What's special about these two?

[Also, and maybe this should be a separate section, I can see a case for finer gradation between levels than is shown here. Most notably, Kleppner and Kolenkow is an intro level book, though one of the most sophisticated of those. It's not really comparable to the rest of the books on its list. Similarly, I think of Eisberg & Resnick as targeting a "first course about quantum" audience, where most of the rest of both lists are aimed at upper-level undergraduates.)] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steuard (talk • contribs) 19:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, this should be one page for physics textbooks in general including topics such as electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, relativity, etc.. Pittsburgcarlos (talk) 19:37, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Pittsburgcarlos: No, this page was fine before. We already have pages listing notable textbooks for the other branches of physics. Please read the "See also" section. Nerd271 (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

@Nerd271 I would argue that this page should at least specify in its name that it only lists mechanics/quantum textbooks. When I see a page titled "List of physics textbooks" I expect to see electromagnetism books as well as the above two topics. This is just based on my experience learning physics in three general categories: mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum. Pittsburgcarlos (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pittsburgcarlos: That was the original name. I still have it listed on my personal page. I have not gone here for a while and did not notice that somebody had changed its name. Looking at the history of the page, the person who did so was you. Nerd271 (talk) 17:39, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Nerd271 It seems like I have fooled myself then, not the first time. I can change it back to the former name. Pittsburgcarlos (talk) 19:04, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for deletion

Hi all, these three lists have notability problems as cohesive wholes and are rather unencyclopedic. They provide a valuable resource, however, so I am proposing that we rework all of these pages as List of undergraduate physics textbooks and List of graduate physics textbooks. It is easy to establish notability for each of these lists and use subsections and tables to make it easy to browse. This will allow both of those lists to be candidates for featured list status in the future, rather than random AfD discussions when noticed. In addition, it will allow for general physics books to be added to the undergrad page and specialty physics books to the grad page. Because there is nothing cited in this article and no prose, there is nothing to merge or keep and the name is not useful. I therefore want to propose it for deletion if everyone is on board with that plan. (We can create new redirects for each after) Let me know what you think, I'll wait a week or so before doing anything to allow for comments. Thanks! Footlessmouse (talk) 23:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that there is a notability concern; these do seem to meet the spirit of the stand-alone list notability guideline. That said, perhaps gathering them into a graduate and an undergraduate list would simply be more useful. XOR'easter (talk) 00:58, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Though the existing 3 lists have sections for undergraduate & graduate, I disagree about making the 2 new lists as proposed, since a layperson would more likely search books by topic than by content level, e.g. undergraduate & graduate (which is more subjective). I agree with the talk page section above by Steuard to merge all 3 lists in one page. 173.206.95.1 (talk) 22:38, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

173.206.95.1, but this is one of the many problems my proposal seeks to remedy, namely, you cannot search for this page on Wikipedia unless you already know it exists. This page is a particularly bad offender in that area as if you're looking for quantum mechanics textbooks, you're not going to search Wikipedia for lists of textbooks on classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. In fact, it is much easier and more common to search for physics textbooks. A page for list of physics textbooks should redirect to list of undergraduate physics textbooks and a hat not will point to graduate textbooks. Finally, All of these pages would redirect to the appropriate section of those pages, such as searching for list of textbooks on classical mechanics taking you to the classical mechanics section of the undergraduate physics textbook list. Finally, almost everyone who searches Wikipedia for textbooks will be looking for undergraduate textbooks. (Also note, the thermodynamics list is horrible and is not broken properly into sections) So I don't think the "likely search" is a great argument against my plan here. Does that make sense and, if so, what do you think? Footlessmouse (talk) 00:11, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, sorry just noticed the bit about merging all into one page. The problem with that is the page would be far too big. Again, almost everyone looking for textbooks on Wikipedia will be undergraduates. Therefore, my proposal to create List of physics textbooks to redirect to List of undergraduate physics textbooks is effectively the same solution as what you are calling for. The only difference is there would be an extra page to contain the many books that are meant for graduate level. It is not subjective at all, as I've said before, we should not be categorizing them. Someone else must have published something at some point specifying whether the book was grad or undergrad level, otherwise, it probably is not notable enough to be included in these lists. The de Facto criteria to make these lists has become the existence of at least one published review or recommendation. Footlessmouse (talk) 00:19, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Rename

The word "on" in the title of this article should be changed to "in" for consistency with the other lists of textbooks. Michael Lee Baker (talk) 14:19, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

@Michael Lee Baker: Next time, please put new comments on the bottom. To answer your suggestion, the word 'on' makes more sense in this case, regardless of what the titles of the other ones are, because 'on' here means 'about'; the word 'in' does not seem suitable. Nerd271 (talk) 15:34, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

If we accept this argument, then it could be applied equally well to the others. One of the others is about statistical mechanics, and the word 'in' is used. Either change this one to 'in', or change the others to 'on'. Michael Lee Baker (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Michael Lee Baker: People created those lists before this one. Nerd271 (talk) 19:59, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 18 February 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bensci54 (talk) 15:46, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

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List of physics textbooks → List of textbooks on classical mechanics and quantum mechanics – Original name suited page better. Nerd271 (talk) 18:05, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Agree revert the move per article content. There is no proposal to merge the various lists. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.