Introduction to Elementary Particles

This is possibly the best textbook on any subject that I have ever read. And when I say read I mean cover to cover, several times! (The book is now so shabby and food stained that I'm thinking of buying another copy.) The previous reviews have said it all but I want to summarize some quick points.1. The footnotes and references are in a class of their own. You MUST read them to get full value. They contain a wealth of critical information.2. The narrative style and method of explanation in this book makes me feel as though David Griffith is talking one-on-one to me alone. In my opinion he is peerless as a teacher!3. The ability of this text to present some of the most complex mathematical material in an a simple, accessible and meaningful way using ordinary, jargon free language is just amazing. Of course particle physics is never going to be simple in laymen's terms but the ability to simplify the difficult ideas it contains as much as possible is critical for a student.4. The ability of David Griffiths to make the subject - even at its most formal and driest points - exciting and alive is a rare and special skill.5. The problems posed at the end of each section are the gateway to true understanding. They are clear, practical, have a definite educational purpose and are often fun to solve as well.5. If you are affiliated with a university or other teaching institution and can get hold of the Solutions Manual, you MUST do so. It is a gem in itself and an essential part of the total "David Griffiths" experience.Although this book is an absolute must if you are studying the subject and even if you are merely interested in it, there are a couple of minor quibbles that I need to bring to your attention.Firstly, I would have loved to see a bit more on the fascinating subject of Renormalization and especially some of the deeper implications of Renormalization Theory. As it is the subject is treated in a very practical way and the book contains just enough material to enable one to solve the problems and to get on with other things. A little more would have been nice.Secondly, and much more seriously, my copy of the book arrived with a double sided printout of 53 errata. These range from minor typos to complete show stoppers (if left uncorrected)! In fact there are so many of them, and they often have such serious effect on the text that I have broken a habit of a life-time and penciled in the corrections on the pages themselves. I would normally regard this as inexcusable vandalism but the constant referral to the errata sheet had become tiresome. I regard Wiley the publishers of this book to be one of the best technical publishers in the world and I can only guess at the glitch which let so many errors get through to the print stage. Having said this, once the errors are noted and corrected one can get back to the study and enjoyment of this fine work.

This is a great book as an introduction for physics undergraduates students in their final years for the beautiful subject of Particle Physics. I used the first edition back at PUC on my final year of the BSc in Physics and it was of great help. It brings a whole chapter about The Feynman Calculus or Feynman logic, that is, set up the Feynman Rules and use them to calculate diagrams. One thing that I really liked about this book are the diagrams themselves, I mean where else would you find the beta decay of a neutron as a Feynman Diagram showing three lines in parallel for the two down and one up quarks travelling together and then interacting with the weak boson W to produce some lines of the electron and (anti) neutrino, plus some other quarks that are now two ups and one down i.e. a proton. There are also many other fancy diagrams like Yukawa's exchange of a Pion between two protons etc. This new edition has been rewritten in some parts, making it clearer and adding new material to previous chapters of the first edition. It also brings a whole new chapter about the oscillations of neutrinos and instead of one chapter, two chapters of introductory material for all this subject, one about a historical introduction and one on the main constituents of the Standard Model (the four forces, quarks, leptons, bosons or force carrier etc.) It bring very useful problems at the end of each chapter (you can get a lot doing them!) It also brings some very beautiful diagrams of Gellman's eightfold way, some in two dimensions and other arrangements in three dimensional form. Griffiths is a very good author, that is very clear from his best seller book on Electrodynamics (has 5 editions up to now, and that's where I learnt the stuff of Classical Electrodynamics) and another great book on Quantum Mechanics. Terrific book!

Griffith's introductory book on the Standard Model of particle physics is a magnificently accessible overview of a very complex subject. The book covers all of the major topics, including the quark model, quantum electodynamics (subatomic level electromagnetic interactions), quantum chromodynamics (strong nuclear force interactions), Feynman diagrams (used to calculate information about particle interactions), electroweak theory (involved in nuclear decay processes). He also presents one of the most easily comprehensible discussions of quantum field theory I've seen.Griffith's writing style is engaging and entertaining, which is very unusual for an advanced physics text. The book is a pleasure to read even if you don't really understand the topics. It was good enough that I sat and read the whole book, end to end.What this book does not have is detailed mathematical derivations of the theories presented. Griffiths provides references to books that contain the proofs and derivations, but he focuses solely on the whats and hows. Another unfortunate drawback is that the book doesn't contain solutions to the problems at the end of each chapter, which would have been nice to have.To really appreciate the book, one should have a college level science background, but one doesn't need to be a full blown physicist or mathematician to appreciate the book (I am a professional chemist, and my mathematical background is not all that advanced). All in all, this is, in my opinion, the best introduction to the Standard Model that's out there.