Comments and Errata for Kittel's "Introduction to Solid State Physics", 8th Edition (Wiley)
p. 58, Fig. 3-6 (LJ potential). In the 7th edition, the vertical axis was labeled U(R)/4 epsilon and the minimum value was -0.25, which is correct. In the 8th edition, they changed the axis label to U(R)/epsilon to make the minimum value -1.0, but forgot to change the curve, so it is incorrect. p. 62, Eq. (17). A prime is used on the Sigma without explanation. Where he says "where the summation includes all ions except j=i" he meant to say "where the prime on the sigma indicates that the summation includes all ions except j=i". p. 80, Eq. (51). He writes 1/C 14 where he means 1/C 44. p. 128: Problem 5-1, Singularity in density of states. In the last sentence, Kittel confuses "discontinuous" with "singular". The square root is singular, but continuous. There is a file of errata and comments on 7th edition, edition , most of which probably still apply to the 8th edition.
http://bama.ua.edu/~visscher/PH458 http://bama.u a.edu/~visscher/PH4581/index.html 1/index.html Online resource for Solid State Physics
Chapter 1, p. 12 Miller indices (though Kittel never calls them that, he says "index system"): I don't think his definition of the indices hkl in terms of reciprocals of intercepts is very useful, so I skipped it. I don't think people should waste time learning it. It's much easier and more useful to describe planes by reciprocal lattice vectors G, as in Chapter 2. Chapter 2, p. 32: Before Eq. 9, Kittel says "We must find a set of vectors G such that [Eq. 9] is invariant under all ... " tranlational symmetries. This can't be really what he wants to do -- the set {(0,0,0)} consisting of one vector (zero) satisfies this requirement! requirement! What he must have meant meant was "we must find a set of vectors G such that EVERY function n(r) that is invariant under all translation symmetries symmetries can be expressed in the form [Eq. 9]." This condition is satisfied only by the entire reciprocal lattice. p. 33: This is arranged in a very illogical way, in my opinion: Kittel gives the solution to the problem (Eq. 13) before stating the problem (Eq. 14) or showing that Eq. 14 follows from the requirement of periodicity. p. 34: The sentence in the middle of the page claims, in effect, that if exp(i G.r) is periodic, then G must have the form of Eq. 15. What he actually proved was the converse, that exp(i G.r) for the G defined by Eq. 15 is periodic. Apparently his view is that only a pedant would worry about the distinction between "all physicists are smart people" and its converse "all smart people are physicists".
p. 34: Fig. 6 manages to combine the disadvantage of the Bragg picture of reflection from planes (that it doesn't explain how the two rays, which appear to be moving parallel to each other, somehow manage to re-merge and combine their amplitudes) with the disadvantage (complexity) of the continuum-medium picture. But the scattering amplitude is a hard thing to explain in a small amount of space. p. 36: Kittel makes a fine distinction between the description of a plane by a reciprocal lattice vector G and by the Miller indices hkl. I think it's easier to just think in terms of the components of G (which are proportional to hkl) and if someone's definition of hkl differs from it by a multiplicative constant, deal with that problem when it arises. p. 36, Laue equations: I can't figure out what Kittel is trying to say here. If you can figure out what "cones" he is talking about, let me know. Otherwise we will skip this section. p. 37: There is a typo that confuses the logic here -- the last sentence of the first paragraph should actually be the first sentence of the second paragraph (about two dimensions.) If you want to understand this, read Chapter 19 -- we will skip it. p. 44, after Eq. 47: As he often does, Kittel gives a list of facts here (e.g., S=0 when v1+v2+v3 is odd) without telling the reader why it is true. Since the lattice is bcc, the reciprocal lattice is fcc; the points where this sum is odd are not ON the reciprocal lattice, and so so obviously have zero amplitude (structure factor).
Errata for Introduction to Solid State Physics by Charles Kittel, 8th Edition
p. 12 – Figure 14 caption – one of the (100)’s should be . (100) p. 30 - Figure 6 - The phase factor under the outgoing beam should be -- the prime p. 36 – The text between eq (30) and eq (31) - "We have, using (28)," should be "We have, using (29),". p. 42 - Equation (50) - the last "=" sign should be deleted; sin(Gr)/Gr is part of the integrand. p. 58, Fig. 3-6 (LJ potential). In the 7th edition, the vertical axis was labeled U(R)/4ε and the minimum value was -0.25, which is correct. In the 8th edition, they changed the axis label to U(R)/ε (which would make the minimum value -1.0), but forgot to actually multiply the curve by a factor of 4. Therefore the y-axis label should be U(R)/4ε. p. 61, Figure 8, lower right corner - change "Cohesive energy" to "Lattice energy". p. 62, Eq. (1 indicates that the summation includes all ions except j=i". p. 73, Line 5 - Change "a=4.16 Å" to "a=5.88 Å". (Note from Dr. Colton: I haven’t verified this one.) p. 80, Eq. (51). The left-most variable should be C44, not C14. p. 98, Equation (21), the upper right matrix entry should be -C(1+e-ika); the minus sign is missing in the exponent.
p. 104, the minus sign between ω2/ω02 and the sine-squared term should be an equals sign; also, below the summation sign, p-1 should be p=1. p. 128: Problem 5-1, Singularity in density of states. In the last sentence, change the word “discontinuous” to “continuous, but has a kink.” p. 142, Equation (24a) - the closing bracket in the denominator should follow the T, not the 1: …/kBT] + 1 p. 205 - Equation (37) should be density of states per volume, not just density of states. P. 206 - In Equation (42), the integral should go from have (Ev-μ) in the exponential, not (Ec-μ). p. 258 - The Appendices' page numbers should be H: 665; I: 667; J: 671.
