
Theoretical Physics, In Your Own Time - shogunmike
http://michaelhallsmoore.com/blog/Guide_To_Theoretical_Physics
======
anatoly
While the idea itself is worthwhile, I didn't see any explanation why these
books and not others were selected, and no underlying structure to the choices
made by the author. He also frequently lists several books covering the same
topic without mentioning how they differ from each other.

I have previously seen two similar lists that are in my opinion better than
this one:

John Baez, How To Learn Math And Physics
<http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html>

Gerard 't Hooft, How To Become A Good Theoretical Physicist
<http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html>

~~~
sz
John Baez rocks. In general. All of his stuff is great and his writing style
will cheer you up when you feel like you need to go back to freshman calculus.

I read some of his pieces on Lie algebras and A-D-E classifications. Very
helpful.

~~~
anatoly
Baez is awesome. I used to follow his news-in-mathematical-physics digests
back in the 90ies (basically a blog years before there were blogs); sadly
almost everything went over my head. I dream of finding time and stamina to
study enough background material to understand his Rosetta stone paper well.

------
_corbett
Mary Boas' "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" is also excellent,
I'm using it for a course I'm teaching. At a level where a student is
comfortable with calculus it presents an overview of the many areas needed to
make graduate physics courses accessible. Although intended to be self
contained in principle, it also might serve as a good jumping off point to
further study in a particular area.

For general relativity, I really recommend Sean Carroll's book Spacetime and
Geometry <http://preposterousuniverse.com/spacetimeandgeometry/>. If it seems
like a long road ahead just take it one step at a time. You'll get there.

~~~
shogunmike
I personally found that after a solid grounding in tensor analysis, GR become
far more accessible. The problem that many GR authors face is that they have
to teach tensors simultaneously with spacetime principles. Quite tricky for a
student to grasp on the first go.

Carroll's book looks interesting. I'll add it to the Amazon wishlist!

------
rguzman
Something like this implicitly misses the point that one of the harder things
to overcome when trying to _do_ theoretical physics are the details of how
research is done. This is the main point of having a PhD-level adviser and
research group: to be able to get through the difficult parts that require
intuition and very-specific domain expertise. These are not necessarily
difficult or too technical, but they are obscure (e.g. how to get MadEvent and
MadGraph up and running).

If all you care about is learning some physics, then this is great. But to
really _do_ theoretical physics the best way still seems to be to have an
apprenticeship with someone who already does it.

~~~
shogunmike
Thanks for the kind words - although many people have commented that I've
missed out some discussion on Statistical Physics. That is the first thing to
correct.

As it happens, Physics is not my main discipline. I did Maths, then Aero
(CFD). I did get by with enough Cosmology/Quantum Mechanics at undergrad to be
able to pick up some advanced undergrad/grad level texts however.

I can certainly agree that some of the more obscure aspects of compressible
flow solvers would have been very difficult to grasp, if I hadn't been able to
question my supervisor on the topic.

I visited the MadEvent/MadGraph wiki. I can see it is related to particle
physics and symmetry models, but what does it do, out of interest?

------
dehowell
You've got to get some statistical mechanics on this list. One would have a
very difficult understanding quantum field theory without at least some
experience considering phase transitions in more familiar settings.

Feynman's Statistical Mechanics is a pleasant read:
[http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Mechanics-Lectures-
Advance...](http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Mechanics-Lectures-Advanced-
Classics/dp/0201360764)

I used to be an experimental particle physicist, so I've certainly got some
bias here, but I really think learning particle physics and the Standard Model
is worth while. Halzen and Martin is a VERY good textbook and an excellent
preparation for studying quantum field theory.

[http://www.amazon.com/Quarks-Leptons-Introductory-
Particle-P...](http://www.amazon.com/Quarks-Leptons-Introductory-Particle-
Physics/dp/0471887412/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289392424&sr=1-14)

Yes, it is expensive. But it is very well written and thorough.

Also, I think it's always important to mention in these conversations that
most physicists don't take string theory seriously. From the outside, it looks
like the exciting frontier of modern physics. But that's more about Brian
Greene's skill in marketing himself than string theory's explanatory value.

That being said, the Fabric of the Cosmos is a good layman's survey of the
modern physics landscape:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabric_of_the_Cosmos>

Just bear in mind that Greene makes a lot of claims that aren't experimentally
justified in chapters 12 and onward.

------
stygianguest
Would it be possible to make such a list with free and/or libre books? The
list they made is not extraordinarily expensive but not cheap either. Some are
outrageous: an introduction to partial differential equations for 110 GBP?!

~~~
sz
There was a gigantic list on Geocities compiled by Alexandre Stefanov of free
math books. Maybe you can find it.

Otherwise a lot of this stuff is torrentable. Also check international
editions.

~~~
giu
A modified list of Alexander Stefanov's list: <http://www.trillia.com/online-
math/index.html>

------
sz
I didn't go through the whole list but I'd make sure to not miss out on the
Feynman Lectures. Once you learn the material it's not really worth it to go
back. They're nice because he gives you the story behind the equations.

Further down the road Laundau & Lifshitz is apparently the Bible.

Maybe rguzman can post his reading list...

~~~
rguzman
I've been meaning to post my reading list for, maybe, 2 years now? I've never
gotten it to a state where I'd consider it too helpful. Along with the list
should come some comments on the books recommended: when to read them, how to
use them, strengths/weaknesses i.e. rationale. It is silly to expect that
someone will just go buy all the books you say and read them.

Basically I haven't posted mine so that the top-voted comment on my submission
to HN doesn't read like this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1889946>
;-) (which I upvoted and entirely agree with, by the way).

------
tyng
Becoming a theoretical physicist was one of my aspirations after reading
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (understood half of it, give or
take) and being good at Physics in high school. Really appreciate the effort
to categorise every steps and resources necessary to attempt this field.

But at the same time this is starting to seem daunting... how long would it
take to go through all this material on a part-time basis? Well, my original
plan was to do it after I semi-retire.

~~~
shogunmike
It's an amazing goal and you should definitely give it a try. My advice is
start at the beginning and see how you get on. After a while you'll probably
be further along than you realise.

Also, it depends on how much you really want to understand. If you want to be
at the level of taking exam papers in all the material, then you would need to
study a lot. If you just want a broad (but mathematical) introduction to the
topics, you can go much faster.

To make things ultra-exciting, you can try and generate computer experiments
around the material you're reading. Build a differential equation solver, use
some Python libraries to visualise a pendulum swing, etc. It really makes it
come alive and gives you a far better understanding of what is really
happening.

~~~
tyng
Good advice, cheers!

------
paraschopra
Get 'Road to Reality' -- massive 1400 page book which builds up from basic
algebra all the way to string theory. Unfortunately, it is still sitting
unread on my book shelf. Completing that book is one of the must-do activities
in my life!

~~~
anatoly
I strongly advise against trying to learn physics from this book. Trust me,
while the idea looks magnificent in theory, it's a horrible book to try and
learn from for someone who doesn't have the mathematical and physical
background. It just isn't possible, and yes, even if you're very, very smart
and talented. Despite the fact that theoretically it's self-contained, you
really need an equivalent of a PhD in math or mathematical physics to approach
this book; but if you do have that background, there are better specialized
textbooks.

The whole thing is basically a massive exercise in vanity. I wouldn't be
surprised if it actually were the most unread book published recently, in
relative terms (that is, the most percent of people who bought it didn't end
up reading any substantial part of it).

------
terra_t
Does this guy have a voting ring? Speaking as a physics PhD, this is really on
the edge of blogspam.

~~~
shogunmike
Nope, no voting ring - I'm pretty surprised it hit the front page to be
honest. In fact, I was debating whether to post it at all as it is obviously
not startup/tech related. Then again, I'd seen a few other physics related
posts pop up so I thought it might have some appeal.

Given that you're a physics PhD, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the
post could be improved. I'm keen to expand it and "fill in the gaps" that
others have suggested.

~~~
terra_t
I don't see the problem is that there are gaps, it's that it's just too much
stuff. The reason it seems spammy to me is that it's a big dump of stuff that
isn't well categorized.

To really get on top of all that stuff is a huge project, and the best way
you're going to do it is by solving problem sets for a few years.

From my current viewpoint, I'd pick something really specific (say, modern
models of quantum black holes) and try to develop the straightest line to it.
Of course, I blew 9 years getting an undergrad and grad degree so I've got
that base.

