A new semester is well under way, only this time I’m in a different country at a very different university. Although lectures comprise most of the learning material in the subjects I’m interested in, it still seems like a good idea to supplement my courses with relevant texts. Fortunately lots of resources are available online but I ended up going with the following books from Amazon.co.uk.
Solid State Physics
There are a number of higher level books pertaining to SSP, but I went with this choice. Relatively easy to understand, lots of good diagrams, and of course the requisite formulas. You’ll still end up working through derivations.
Solid State Physics (Manchester Physics Series)
Computer Networks
I haven’t really read too much into this one. However it covers everything from signal modulation, overlay networks, and SDP. It even includes information about key authentication and security weaknesses
of various network devices. I’ll have to sit down with this one eventually as the lectures for this course are quite weak.
Computer Networks ISE: A Systems Approach
Data Encoding
This course is really interesting. Lots of simple, but fun math. Currently we’re going over basic coding practices and algorithms. Should pick up quite nicely once we begin talking about actual compression, encryption, and security. Again, the semester has just begun and I’ve been doing more reading online than actually in this book. It doesn’t cover much basic coding theory–but still is a good working reference.
Introduction to Cryptography: With Coding Theory
Modern Optics
I dig this class. The professor moves quickly, but it essentially is a review of electrodynamics. Fermat’s Principle anyone? This book is a good reference manual for this course or anyone with sufficient mathematics background to explore Optics. I’ve actually been reading this through, and it explains the fundamentals of optics and some E&M theory more completely than my previous E&M book! Not to mention it is cheap and light.
Introduction to Modern Optics
So there you have it. An overview of what my nose is buried in for the next few months. I rarely sell back books like most students as I like to have them as reference. (Trust me they’ve saved me numerous times!) All of these books were purchased off of Amazon.co.uk, but should be available in the states on Amazon.com. Hopefully they’ll help me throughout the semester.
Cheers,
Steve
