First published in 1962, many of the problems in this book started as examination questions in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos, which is taken at the end of the second year at Cambridge. They have suffered some changes since then, and have been supplemented by specially invented problems, but the general level is the same. The university teacher, however, should not imagine that our purpose in publishing this collection is to provide him with a ready store of examination questions. We are much more concerned to help the serious student to understand physics, and it is his needs that we have tried to bear in mind throughout.
First published in 1989, this book contained the first systematic account of magnetoresistance in metals, the study of which has provided solid-state physicists with much valuable information about electron motion in metals. The electrical resistance of a metal is usually changed when a magnetic field is applied to it; at low temperatures the change may be very large indeed and when magnetic breakdown is involved, very complex. Every metal behaves differently, and the effect is highly dependent on the direction of the field relative to the crystal axes. Quite apart from its usefulness for determining the Ferni surfaces of individual metals, the phenomenon presents many interesting problems in its own right; it is the phenomenon, rather than its applications, that Professor Pippard concentrates on in this book. The level of treatment is aimed at readers with a basic knowledge of undergraduate solid-state physics, and makes no great demand on mathematical ability. The text is copiously