I don't necessarily know what book he's referring to, but the book that taught me solid state was Ashcroft and Mermin.
That's a book that deliberately starts out with the silliest possible model and then gradually introduces more and more sophisticated models until the book runs out of pages or your head explodes, whichever comes first. ;)
An important insight, however, is that the simple models are incredibly useful. When I was a teenager I used to fret that the teachers were showing me the simple models first because they were fools, or because they thought we were fools. But it turns out that they are doing so to call attention to certain important general features without distracting you with irrelevant detail.
My favorite class in all of science was Roald Hoffman's chemistry class, the highest numbered class in the Cornell chemistry department, a class which represented the point where chemistry and physics merge to become the same subject. And Hoffman deliberately used a relatively simple model of molecule-molecule interactions in a solid, the Hückel model:
Have you ever read Feynman's Lectures on Physics Volume 2 (Electricity and Magnetism)? One of the things I love about it is that it starts with Maxwell's equations, in their non-simplified form, then goes into the special cases of electrostatics, magnetostatics, and then uniting them into electrodynamics. Feynman goes over the special cases in a way that you never forget that they're in the end incorrect simplifications, there's even a table at the end of the statics section showing "These equations are false, these are true in general."
I don't mind simplified incorrect models so long as they're presented that way (so I don't want to read a "all that stuff we just covered? Yeah it's wrong"-ish sentence after the fact) and the full truth is eventually revealed in an understandable way. I want a full picture of something, not a partial incorrect picture of something, it scares me that some people never stop thinking of an atom as a small planetary system.
Indeed, the one solid-state class I took used Kittels, and I quickly ended up borrowing Ashcroft from someone. Kittels was the least "physics-y" physics textbook I ever came across.
"Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems" by Supriyo Datta.
It's a very specific book, but it does explain for example why you can assume that only electrons at the Fermi energy contribute to transport phenomena (aka "current").
I guess for somebody not into mesoscopic transport, only the first three or four chapters will be of interested. But for my diploma thesis (which ended too badly to link it here) it was a real live safer.
I don't necessarily know what book he's referring to, but the book that taught me solid state was Ashcroft and Mermin.
That's a book that deliberately starts out with the silliest possible model and then gradually introduces more and more sophisticated models until the book runs out of pages or your head explodes, whichever comes first. ;)
An important insight, however, is that the simple models are incredibly useful. When I was a teenager I used to fret that the teachers were showing me the simple models first because they were fools, or because they thought we were fools. But it turns out that they are doing so to call attention to certain important general features without distracting you with irrelevant detail.
My favorite class in all of science was Roald Hoffman's chemistry class, the highest numbered class in the Cornell chemistry department, a class which represented the point where chemistry and physics merge to become the same subject. And Hoffman deliberately used a relatively simple model of molecule-molecule interactions in a solid, the Hückel model:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hückel_method
Moreover, Hoffman would communicate in pictures as much as in math.
Have you ever read Feynman's Lectures on Physics Volume 2 (Electricity and Magnetism)? One of the things I love about it is that it starts with Maxwell's equations, in their non-simplified form, then goes into the special cases of electrostatics, magnetostatics, and then uniting them into electrodynamics. Feynman goes over the special cases in a way that you never forget that they're in the end incorrect simplifications, there's even a table at the end of the statics section showing "These equations are false, these are true in general."
I don't mind simplified incorrect models so long as they're presented that way (so I don't want to read a "all that stuff we just covered? Yeah it's wrong"-ish sentence after the fact) and the full truth is eventually revealed in an understandable way. I want a full picture of something, not a partial incorrect picture of something, it scares me that some people never stop thinking of an atom as a small planetary system.
Amen to Ashcroft & Mermin. I found it much easier to use over Kittels solid state text. Or, more accurately, Shittels solid state physics
Indeed, the one solid-state class I took used Kittels, and I quickly ended up borrowing Ashcroft from someone. Kittels was the least "physics-y" physics textbook I ever came across.
"Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems" by Supriyo Datta.
It's a very specific book, but it does explain for example why you can assume that only electrons at the Fermi energy contribute to transport phenomena (aka "current").
I guess for somebody not into mesoscopic transport, only the first three or four chapters will be of interested. But for my diploma thesis (which ended too badly to link it here) it was a real live safer.