: The book’s treatment of the Fermi surface is critical for understanding the electrical and magnetic properties of metals.
David Mermin is known for his unique writing style—subtle, elegant, and occasionally humorous. This makes the book "extraordinarily readable" for a graduate text. Ashcroft and Mermin
: They begin with the simplest classical model of metals, showing exactly where it succeeds and where it fails miserably (like predicting heat capacity). : The book’s treatment of the Fermi surface
: A popular piece of physics lore mentions that Lev Landau ranked physicists on a logarithmic scale (Newton at 0, Einstein at 1); Mermin reportedly placed himself at 4.5. 4. Legacy vs. Modernity Einstein at 1)