Physics - Mains (Part III)

Mechanics: The syllabus has changed quite significantly, so keep a look out for better sources. Textbook: J C Upadhyaya

Mechanics of Particles: Upadhyaya does not have topics related to gravitation. Most of the others are covered well. Centre of mass and laboratory reference frames can be done from Kleppner-Kolenkov.

Rigid Bodies: Again, Upadhyaya is quite good. “Top” is covered in it but the treatment is very mathematical. I referred to T W B Kibble to get a good physical understanding of the topic.

Continuous media is a new topic and I don’t know about it.

Relativity is done well in Upadhyaya especially Minkowski, Four vector, covariance. But the book won’t give conceptual clarity. Read Bieser for concepts before starting with Upadhyaya.

Waves and optics:

Waves is covered well in Bajaj. Stick to the syllabus and see previous years questions to get the orientation. Huygens principle is from Ghatak (Optics).

Geometrical Optics can be done from Ghatak. Nodal Planes are not explained well. They can be done from B S Aggarwal.

For Interference, Diffraction and Polarization follow Brijlal Subramaniam. Certain topics which are not in it can be done from Ghatak. Circular aperture is a tough topic, but I did the needed mathematics from Ghatak. Focusing of laser beams is another tough topic but it is given in Ghatak. Don’t go into mathematical details of holography. Just a simple “General Studies” approach.