This guy was horrible for 131. Seriously, he is the farthest thing from a "genius" (as someone below said). People who a) cannot linearly explain themselves or put themselves in the shoes of the person understanding, and b) who are utterly inflexible and unperceptive, are not geniuses.

The book will make perfect sense and will be very easy to follow. Unfortunately, you won’t get by in this class just off reading and understanding the book, because he uses a completely different notation from the book and has a habit of turning simple concepts into convoluted piles of gibberish (as well as adding ‘in my opinion, my method is far easier to follow than the book’ at the end.)

The difficulty of this class has nothing to do with the material being theoretical, and everything to do with him being terrible at getting across theoretical concepts. He is hard of hearing, and communication (both verbal and via email) is difficult. Listen carefully in lecture, and memorize the equations and derivations in the handouts even if you have no fucking clue what they mean. If you want to understand something, read the book. If you want to do well on the tests, just memorize his gibberish version in the handout. I did that and got within the top 15-20% for both midterms.

His midterm averages are only slighter higher than Corbin’s if that gives you an idea (nothing against Corbin, he was fantastic and his exams were always a learning experience). This is genuinely an asshole, and out of touch with the modern world.

If you’re able to translate between his language and the language of the book, you’ve got half the job done.

Also, his website says he's writing a thermodynamics book. For the sake of physics students everywhere, I hope he never finishes the job.

Study his notes and you will be fine. The book is somewhat helpful, but I would try to buy it used or borrow it from someone. I barely understood what was going on in his class and I ended up with a B, so don't stress out if you don't do that well on the tests.

If you want to do well in his class, you simply have to understand what he teaches. All his midterms and final are based on his notes and homework, and they are easy questions but covering difficult concepts. So if you don't understand him(lectures,notes,hw), there is no way you can do well on the tests. Everything he teaches is theoretical, there is barely anything to memorize in the class. Go to his office hours if you don't understand something, he will explain it in detail. He is available everyday after class, and a very nice person to talk with.