The Physics of Solids: Essentials and Beyond

Solid State Physics emphasizes a few fundamental principles and extracts from them a wealth of information. This approach also unifies an enormous and diverse subject which seems to consist of too many disjoint pieces. The book starts with the absolutely minimum of formal tools, emphasizes the basic principles, and employs physical reasoning (" a little thinking and imagination" to quote R. Feynman) to obtain results. Continuous comparison with experimental data leads naturally to a gradual...