<p>First off, I am posting this on the MIT thread for no reason other than that I anticipate the responses will be interesting, and I’d naturally see myself wanting to listen to what you all have to say.</p>
<p>In short, I would like to ask various science majors (excluding mathematics, since the whole point is to take a brief look outside of it) what subjects in your majors someone like me might be interested in. To put it this way, I cannot for the life of me do labs, and mainly would be interested in theoretical things. References would be nice, too. </p>
<p>As another note, while I would appreciate a beautiful blend of mathematics + other fields, I’m not so into a lot of places where math does show up in other fields, given it tends to be relatively less than conceptual, and heavy in wild equations. I’m not sure, for instance, how a semi-advanced quantum mech class would be in flavor when you actually get down to doing the work as opposed to when you just hear someone tell you what the subject’s about in 10 minutes. </p>
<p>Excellent, that’s all the qualifiers I have. Hopefully this isn’t coming across as a request for comments, followed by a rejection of all possible replies. Really, regardless of all I wrote above, I’m sure any discussion at all would be interesting to me!</p>
<p>General Relativity - differential geometry / topology
Advanced Quantum Mechanics - abstract algebra, linear algebra, group theory
Statistical Mechanics - probability</p>
<p>In physics though, I don’t think you will find the material to be too heavy toward theoretical math until the grad level at least. And even then it will still be a “physics” class before it will be a “math” class, you know?</p>
<p>That’s fine, and these are nice recommendations. I actually am curious about classes that aren’t math classes in disguise anyway – if that were what I wanted, I’d probably just check out things titled “mathematical ________” anyway. But I would like things to be treated in the best language possible, so as to make for clean reading. </p>
<p>Any good books for the relativity and quantum mechanics? Thanks again!</p>
<p>Mathboy – I don’t think I can answer your “math in disguise” question very well. Regardless, here are some books that, from my experience, are solid textbooks for science.</p>
<p>I have the Griffith Electrodynamics book, and it’s really good to explain stuff for a novice, but as STBD said, it is probably not formal enough for purists. The computations get pretty hefty at times, but I like it better than Feynman’s lectures vol II, in which the lack of mathematical computations make it difficult to understand.</p>
<p>But since you are looking for an “extra” resource, the griffith book is good because, well, everything is in math terms in it. And plus, it’s a pretty light read for such a mathematically involved book (in that the author doesn’t sound like a boring robot, he actually has a personality).</p>
<p>Thank you faraday! And thanks SDTB, that is an expansive list! This is all for my interest, and I hope to be able to find time. Perhaps over summer, depending on what I’m doing with math in the first place.</p>
<p>Oh, and I don’t mean in any way to narrow this completely to physicists. As I hope I made clear, this is mainly to give me an idea as to what good stuff there is outside of my standard comfort zone, and the goal isn’t just to find an extension of mathematical stuff. Interesting science for its sake would be welcome.</p>
<p>Back to what has in fact been said – SDTB and faraday, so given that my physics background is limited, how friendly are these books? I’m fairly certain the math in any of them will not be an issue, it’ll be that I have not worked in the context of any advanced physics before, and if they assume tons of background knowledge, that’ll be tougher. I know lots of very advanced books actually are friendly to someone with maturity rather than extensive prior knowledge.</p>
<p>Computer science (although not really a science) isn’t math intensive unless you want to go into very, very theoretical things and won’t have labs.</p>
<p>Also SDTB, I am wanting to look at both simultaneously or something – what’s Jackson’s book going to be like? <em>TOO</em> math-y to the point where I won’t know I’m reading physics anymore? (In which case I might as well just do some math as per my original plans!!!)</p>
<p>EDIT – yeah, I think my worst fears about Jackson are kind of confirmed – probably not for my pleasure-reading purposes. If I’m going to tear my hair off due to hideousness of what I’m reading, I might as well make it immediately related to my course of study ;)</p>
<p>Jackson’s not a light or pleasurable read, neither is Sakurai or Shankar or most of the more advanced undergrad quantum books out there. Griffiths, Feynman, Taylor & Wheeler’s Black Holes, Schutz’s GR, these are better for interest and free time’s sake.</p>
<p>I’ve yet to find a very good cosmology text :[ If anyone knows of one, let me know.
In cosmology class we’ve tried Ryder (which had some pretty grievous errors in it…) and weinberg (not very quantitative), I didn’t really find either of those satisfactory, although weinberg’s was interesting.</p>
<p>Hm, so even if the reading isn’t light, I am perfectly happy to take a look. I have a somewhat different definition of pleasure-reading, perhaps! It’s precisely that which delivers pleasure. I just got the impression this Jackson book is a tough nut one must crack to go on, and not very fun to go through, but if that’s false, I am willing to look.</p>
<p>Also, I am hoping all these recommendations take into account that I’ll have the maturity to read the books, but not much physics background.</p>
<p>Anyway, many thanks all. I decided that I’ll first learn a little quantum, given it’s entirely new to me and thus has some mystery attraction factor. Maybe after I get my hands dirty, I’ll just pick up a crazy electrodynamics book and start reading that :)</p>
<p>If any of the chemists and biologists think of anything that’s super cool to read, I’ll put that on my list for the future too! (If it’s something that requires additional background, specify background!)</p>