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I have never taken the US Physics Olympiad, but seeing that your ultimate plan is to make it

to the IPhO, I think I might be able to help.


Caveat: I have never participated in IPhO and went to a grand total of one Asian Physics
Olympiad. However, I was selected twice for the Indian Physics Olympiad camp (where they
select the IPhO team), though I skipped in favour of Chemistry. I do however have friends
who went on to IPhO, and as a rising junior majoring in Physics, I believe I have a
somewhat fair idea about best possible resources.
Firstly: You have to read up on Calculus. No excuses-it is essential for studying
physics.Calculus and Analytic Geometry (9th Edition): George B. Thomas, Ross L. Finney:
9780201531749 is decent and readable, though I concede that I am a sucker for old Russian
texts like Differential and Integral Calculus, Vol. I: Piskunov. Read up on all the Univariate
stuff you can, and also a lot of Multivariate (will be very helpful).
The staring place typically ought to be a freshman physics text such as Fundamentals of
Physics Extended (9780470469088): David Halliday, Robert Resnick, Jearl
Walker orAmazon.com: University Physics with Modern Physics (13th Edition)
(9780321696861): Hugh D. Young, Roger A. Freedman, A. Lewis Ford. I am a bit biased
towards the former, which in fact ought to be good for all the theory you should need.
If you were planning on reading further, my suggestions would be as follows (in no
particular order):
Electricity and Magnetism: Electricity and Magnetism: Edward M. Purcell, David J.
Morin: 9781107014022 or Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th Edition): David J. Griffiths:
9780321856562.
The latter uses a lot of multivariate calculus, and so studying that first might be helpful
(though I kind of went about it the wrong order, as I later found out).
Mechanics: An Introduction to Mechanics: Daniel Kleppner, Robert Kolenkow:
9780521198110 is pretty decent.
Modern Physics topics: Stick to Halliday for now, and I am serious about it. It you do
want to read Quantum, try Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition): David J.
Griffiths: 9780131118928 - Readable, but goes deep enough.
Waves:Vibrations and Waves (The M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series) (9780393099362):
A.P. French is very through.
Optics: Will need to look this one up, always trips me..
Thermo&Stat Mech: Halliday ought to be good enough. You don't actually need to know

Stat Mech.
That might be a long reading list, but that will be of little use without practice. Olympiads
are all about problem solving, and so you need problems that can test your understanding of
the material.
You could of course, try your hand on the real stuff- IPhO - International Physics
Olympiads has problems from 1967-2009. For the later years, check out the individual
olympiad websites (google is your friend there).
My personal pick however is Problems in General Physics : I. E. Irodov. I think copyright
went down on this one, so it should be good. All problems you could wish for-mechanics,
E&M, thermo, optics, waves etc.
Final thoughts: No need to stay Anon for this. No one will be judging-a lot of us were in a
similar place once.
EDIT: Cannot believe I was stupid enough to have missed this-use OCW. It will be great for
learning Calculus, and getting started.
Single Variable Calculus
Multivariable Calculus
Physics I: Classical Mechanics
Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism
Physics III: Vibrations and Waves
These ought to be decent starting points.
If you want to do well in Physics Olympiads, I'd highly recommend some combination of the
following (bearing in mind that this is based on my own experiences and what I would have
done in hindsight).
Introduction to Classical Mechanics, David Morin: For some reason, a lot of people
seem to dislike this book, which I don't understand -- in my opinion, this book is absolutely
phenomenal. The problems range from one star (you have a basic understanding of the
material) to four star (you can spend a week on one of these and still not get it). Most
importantly, Morin does an exceptional job of teaching problem solving, and many of his
problems are similar to ones on the USA Physics Olympiad. You don't need the section on
Lagrangians for physics olympiads, but it's a fun bit.
Electricity and Magnetism, Purcell and Morin: You're probably noticing a theme
here...but Purcell's book was the gold standard for E&M long before Morin came along. The

3rd addition has dozens of extra problems that Morin added on; these run along similar
lines to his Classical Mechanics book. You can't go wrong with this one.
I think the above two are sufficient to occupy months of your time. A couple other minor
recommendations:
Thermodynamics, Enrico Fermi: Fermi's book is great for understanding
Thermodynamics on a conceptual level; his proofs are normally thought experiments, which
is great for the level needed at most Olympiads (note: this probably doesn't hold for IPhO,
but for USAPhO, I can't remember a thermo problem that wasn't solvable with the info from
this book.
Other than that, practice, practice, practice. Set aside time every day specifically for this.
Schedule appointments and projects around your physics problem sessions. Enjoy the
problems, tear out some hair, and marvel at the solutions. Good luck!

While I still insist that Morin's book is one of the greatest physics textbooks ever written,
I've added a few additional resources below, in case you find you don't like the above.
Kleppner and Kolenkow (Classical Mechanics)
Feynman's Lectures in Physics (all subjects)
Thermal Physics (Schroeder)
Introduction to Electrodynamics (Griffith)
Problems in General Physics by I.E. Irodov
Firstly, the syllabus for the NSEP and INPhO is the same as that of IIT-JEE, so a thorough
preparation for the latter should be enough to get you through to the camp. There, you face
some topics like relativity and quantum mechanics, for which you can prepare in April (well,
we used to have JEE around 10th April, so we could but I am sure, you can find some time
too). For an OCSC-level grasp on these concepts, Resnick's book on relativity and SerwayMoses-Meyer/ Mani-Mehta's book on modern physics suffice.
Once you are at the OCSC, your experimental skills are put to the test too. So, it does help a

lot if you have been to a proper school and not just joined a dummy one. On how to prepare
specifically for the IPhO, well, the PDTC (pre-departure training camp) is quite good. Apart
from that, just go through the plethora of papers from previous years and gain good speed
and practice.
On a more personal note, I must confess that my physics wasn't exactly at the IPhO level by
December 2009. After that, I came in touch with a very good teacher and spent almost the
entire Jan '10 strengthening my weak areas. I do specifically remember this book "200
Puzzling Physics Problems" by Peter Gnadig which gave me a lot of insight and taught me
many a beautiful trick, helping me in the competitive exams as well as IPhO.
PS - Following are a few newspaper articles from late 2011 that I authored on how to master
physics for IIT-JEE, a necessity before you even think of the IPhO.

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