/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10420852]

If I want to bring myself up to speed on modern physics, how would I go about this? I've been dicking around with fiction for too long.

Is there a chart somewhere or a just a solitary "all-encompassing" book that'll help me out?

[Anonymous No.10420853]

all you need


https://youtu.be/watch?v=KooPsEE7E-Q

[Anonymous No.10420854]

>>10420852
How much physics do you know? Also, how's your math?

[Anonymous No.10420855]

>>10420854
Not too much I'm afraid and math's about the same. I basically just stuck with poetry and Law school after high school.

I'm pretty sure Penrose's Road To Reality would filter me hard. (not sure what the scientific community's consensus on that book is desu)

[Anonymous No.10420856]

>>10420855
Pick a classical mechanics textbook of your choice and follow as well as you can, feel free to look up stuff within for whoever originally formulated it and read their output firsthand
It's really not possible to "catch up" on physics and especially not without "catching up" on math first, so I'd recommend instead focusing on the philosophy of science the big boys held unless you really want to go back to basics.

[Anonymous No.10420857]

without a solid grounding in math you won't get beyond popular physics i'm afraid.
so if you're serious, start with some "math for physicists" book. From then on it depends on what specific field you want to get into but, generally, a book on mechanics would be the next step.
come again when you're done with that.
good luck!
(i'm a physics student procrastinating on writing my thesis btw)

[Anonymous No.10420858]

>>10420852
http://www.goodtheorist.science/

[Anonymous No.10420859]

Pick up one of those thick as hell college calculus textbook. Read through pre-cal to single variable integral calculus. Jump to ODE, read through all the techniques to solve ODE up to 2nd order. Also pick up basic concepts on matrix and its manipulation. (Find an intro book to linear algebra if your book doesn't have it, a usual choice is one from Serge Lang.) Finish all the exercises. You are now in a good position to learn classical mechanics.

Pick up "An Introduction to Mechanics" by Kleppner and Kolenkow, coupled with a text on analytical mechanics (Marion & Thornton, Fowles etc.). You want the former for Newtonian Physics, latter for an intro to Lagrangian & Hamiltonian formalisms. Meanwhile, keep slogging through your calculus textbook up to multivariable calculus and basic field theory. After finishing all these, you can now start doing electromagnetism.

This will probably be the first truly challenging block you have to go through. Pick up the famous "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by Griffiths, work through the book and finish all exercises. The last chapter will give you a fairly good intro to special relativity.

From then on, anything you learn will be considered "modern physics", in the sense that majority of them are discovered during the mid 19th century to early 20th century. If you want to go higher, you will need to pick up some engineering maths (assuming you aren't a math person). Pick up "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" by Boas. Read through the chapters on linear algebra, and some basic notions about complex functions. Finish all exercises. You're now good to go with quantum mechanics.

Pick up "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" by again, Griffiths. This will take you through the basics up to perturbation theory.

At this point, I would suggest picking up some basic statistics for statistical mechanics, but it's optional since most stat mech text usually includes statistics on a need-to-know basis. A good start will be "Introduction to Thermal Physics" by Schroeder. If you also want to pick up general relativity, read through the chapter on tensor calculus in Boas to get yourself prepared, then go through a ug level intro book. "Differential Geometry and Relativity Theory" by Faber is a decent choice.

For anything beyond, you'll really need to pick up maths properly, and I mean actually learn about maths rather than this robotic application level maths, but I think the above is more than enough if you simply want to know something about modern physics.

[Anonymous No.10420860]

>>10420859
Are any high level theoretical physicists also philosophers of science in the old, full sense like a Duhem or Mach? Do any very high level mathematicians/physicists engage in truly philosophical speculations about ontology, "natural philosophy" in the classical sense?

I've only ever been able to find QM people who simply say shit like "the fundamental 'stuff' of the universe behaves probabilistically!" which is interesting but it's not really philosophically self-conscious.

[Anonymous No.10420861]

>>10420852
Ask /sci/

But you could try YouTube to be quite honest, as it will give you much more of a baby-steps introduction with sound and visuals than jumping into scientific literature and textbooks.

Watch some World Science Festival, because it's discussion panels of actual bleeding-edge scientists speaking to laymen:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCShHFwKyhcDo3g7hr4f1R8A

One of my favourite channels explaining deep physics theories with gorgeously ugly 3D animation:
https://www.youtube.com/user/EugeneKhutoryansky

Try this playlist too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6p3RzMByWA&list=PLvEsj0xoqSBRRebxzx6dE_lzBlxQX6Bp8

[Anonymous No.10420862]

I really appreciate all the posts here guys, thanks a ton

[Anonymous No.10420863]

suggestion: why don't you merely fuck off back to /sci/

[Anonymous No.10420864]

>>10420863
That's really rude and unhelpful.

[Anonymous No.10420865]

>>10420852
Watch vsauce

[Anonymous No.10420866]

>>10420852
Whoever was making those notes really fucked the 7 in the upper right corner.

[Anonymous No.10420867]

>>10420866
Speaking of those notes, OP should check out the Feynman Lectures too. They're not quite entry-level, but they're accessible.

[Anonymous No.10420868]

>>10420860
no, at least not from my experience.
philosophizing and interpreting too much is more like frowned upon and the mindset is that one should take the mathematical results for what they are and not more.
the whole interpretation fury at the verge of QM led to all this bullshit about multiverses and stuff or, in the case of general relativity, people talking about how time is just another dimension.
if that is what you're aiming for, i would stop and stick to pure philosophy. of course, if you just want to understand modern discoveries to properly account for that in your arguments, studying theoretical physics is worthwhile.

[Anonymous No.10420869]

>>10420860
>Are any high level theoretical physicists also philosophers of science

You could try Max Tegmark's "Our Mathematical Universe". It's great, and he indulges in some metaphysics and philosophical speculation.

[Anonymous No.10420870]

anyone familiar with David Bohm's work?
is it all meme or is there any meat to it?

[Anonymous No.10420871]

>>10420870
if there is meat there it is too mathematical for me to bite into, like way over my head

[Anonymous No.10420872]

>>10420852
Are you looking for high level ‘how shit works?’ Concepts or are you interested in the nitty gritty mechanics and formula?

[Anonymous No.10420873]

>>10420863
You and I both took time to type these posts. Are we happy?

[Anonymous No.10420874]

>>10420868
The chase for "correct" QM interpretations stems from midwits trying to describe QM in classical terms which is flipping of what is base and what is emergent upside down that itself stems from people's minds living since birth in classical world. Similar thing with magnets and rubber band in Feynmann's words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8

[Anonymous No.10420875]

>>10420859
wrong
>>10420856
wrong
>>10420857
right
>>10420861
wrong
>>10420863
right
>>10420865
right
>>10420858
cant believe the only totally correct answer has been ignored

[Anonymous No.10420876]

>>10420852
Lol OP is totally going to bring himself up to speed on modern physics

[Anonymous No.10420877]

>>10420876
lol haha wanting earnestly to learn something is fucking naive. be cool and realistic like me and never do anything, i'm a realist. my mediocrity and lack of passion is not specific to me but is actually universal wisdom. i chose to be mediocre and have low ambition, because i'm smart.

[Anonymous No.10420914]

>>10420876
kys

[Anonymous No.10420983]

>>10420853
based kevin

[Anonymous No.10420992]

>>10420852
>a just a solitary "all-encompassing" book that'll help me out

Young and Freedman - University Physics with Modern Physics

Get an older edition to save money. If you want to go further:
https://4chan-science.fandom.com/wiki/Physics_Textbook_Recommendations

[Anonymous No.10420997]

>>10420858
>>10420875
>cant believe the only totally correct answer has been ignored


you are correct, you can even go "faster" throu his index if you look for a video explanation on that subject, that way you can grasp the basic idea faster and/or compare it to his explanation in case you get lost.

[Anonymous No.10421600]

>>10420852
Read this:
https://www.readthesequences.com/Quantum-Physics-And-Many-Worlds-Sequence