Qwerwr

A GUIDE
TO PHYSICS PROBLEMS part 1
Mechanics, Relativity, and Electrodynamics

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part 1
Mechanics, Relativity, and Electrodynamics
Sidney B. Cahn Boris E. Nadgorny
State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, New York

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW

eBook ISBN: Print ISBN:

0-306-48400-5 0-306-44679-0

©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print ©1994 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers New York All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://kluweronline.com http://ebooks.kluweronline.com

Foreword

For many graduate students of physics the written qualifying examination is the last and one of the most important of the hundreds of grueling examinations that they have had to take in their career. I remember vividly my own experience in 1947 at the University of Chicago. After the qualifying examination, I knew I was finally free from all future examinations, and that generated a wonderful feeling of liberation and relief. Be that as it may, the written qualifying examination does serve a useful purpose, both for the faculty and for the students themselves. That is why so many universities give these exams year after year in all parts of the world. Sidney Cahn and Boris Nadgorny have energetically collected and presented solutions to about 140 problems from the exams at many universities in the United States and one university in Russia, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Some of the problems are quite easy, others quite tough; some are routine, others ingenious. Sampling them I am reminded of the tripos questions of Cambridge University that I had spent so many