David Griffiths (physicist)

For other people named David Griffiths, see David Griffiths (disambiguation).

David J. Griffiths (born 1942) is a U.S. physicist and educator. He has worked at Reed College since 1978, where he is currently the Howard Vollum Professor of Science. He is easily confused with the late physicist David J. Griffiths of Oregon State University.

Griffiths is a graduate of The Putney School and was trained at Harvard University (B.A., 1964; M.A., 1966; Ph.D., 1970). His doctoral work ("Covariant Approach to Massless Field Theory in the Radiation Gauge") on theoretical particle physics was supervised by Sidney Coleman. He is principally known as the author of three highly regarded textbooks for undergraduate physics students: Introduction to Elementary Particles (published in 1987, second edition published 2008), Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (published in 1995, second edition published 2004), and Introduction to Electrodynamics (third edition published in 1999). He was also the recipient of the 1997 Robert A. Millikan award reserved for "those who have made outstanding scholarly contributions to physics education".^[1][2]

Books

• Griffiths, David J. (2008). Introduction to Elementary Particles (2nd ed.). Wiley-VCH. ISBN 3-527-40601-8. 
• Griffiths, David J. (1998). Introduction to Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-805326-X. 
• Griffiths, David J. (2004). Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-111892-7. 

These books are now standard undergraduate texts.

References

1. ^ Griffiths, David (December, 1997). "Millikan Lecture 1997: Is there a text in this class?". American Journal of Physics 65 (12): 1141–1143. Bibcode 1997AmJPh..65.1141G. doi:10.1119/1.18777. http://scitation.aip.org/vsearch/servlet/VerityServlet?KEY=AJPIAS&CURRENT=NO&ONLINE=YES&smode=strresults&sort=rel&maxdisp=25&threshold=0&pjournals=AJPIAS&pyears=2001%2C2000%2C1999&possible1=1141&possible1zone=fpage&fromvolume=65&SMODE=strsearch&OUTLOG=NO&viewabs=AJPIAS&key=DISPLAY&docID=1&page=1&chapter=0. Retrieved 2007-05-22. 
2. ^ List of Robert A. Millikan Award Winners at the American Association of Physics Teachers website

External links

• Griffiths's web page
• Lecture: The charge distribution on a conductor
• "... could teach physics to gerbils."

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Name	Griffiths, David
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Date of birth	1942
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