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How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

staff.science.uu.nl

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Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#11

Post by archgoon »

komali2 wrote: post #2

>Unfortunately, I still have to recommend to buy text books as well Why? EDIT: Why buy textbooks, rather than read online resources and online textbooks?

There is a huge amount of information that has been written down. Different authors have different explanations and takes on things, and will emphasize different aspects of a topic in their presentation.

Look at the recommended texts section:

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/texts&...

He doesn't just cite one text on Classical Mechanics, he cites 5, and in his section on internet resources

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/classm...

He cites 3 more courses.

There is a lot of depth in any of these topics, and any given presentation will be a single path, of many, through the topic. Different perspectives are valuable, as they also help clarify the core of the topic, and allow you to find your own perspective. We are fortunate that there are people who have invested the effort to put some of these resources online, but not everything is currently on the internet. One day perhaps.

Also, some of the internet resources that he links to are now gone, and may or may not have been archived. Textbooks that are cited are almost certainly guaranteed to be available through some library. Given that he's also advocating that serious students attend University, proposing books to read that students can access through ILL seems reasonable.

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#12

Post by Retric »

pvg wrote: post #9
kronos29296 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the basics - Khan academy is easy to understand and gives a good foundation. Don't even try to compare the advanced stuff. Just don't. Takes a lot of work and takes years. Even grad students run away from some of the stuff.

The stuff linked on the page is stuff you'll learn as an undergrad or before.

'Learn' can be fuzzy.

IMO, most undergrads taking an undergrad DifEq course will have little understanding of what they are actually doing and just treat it as symbol manipulation. I have seen people encounter the same problem with calculus, matrices, or even simple algebra. And you can keep pushing, but at some point if you want to progress you need to revisit older topics and hopefully gain new understanding.

It's like revisiting multiplication and division in binary and suddenly understanding why a similar process in base 10 works.

PS: Pure symbol manipulation is still powerful, but intuition takes a little more.

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#13

Post by keldaris »

It's a good comprehensive list, but considerably biased by the author's research interests. There are lots of good theoretical physicists that don't know much about the specifics of string theory and haven't seen general relativity since the relevant graduate course, it just depends on the field you decide to specialize in. On the math side, aside from a few things very specific to string theory, most of it is useful throughout modern theoretical physics, and it certainly helps to have at least a passing familiarity with all of the subjects listed for general erudition. The list could also be expanded with lots of things on the computational side that aren't immediately useful to string theorists but are used in many other fields.

Disclaimer: just a theoretical physics postdoc, YMMV.

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#14

Post by Stasis5001 »

For reference, generally people learn all this over four years of undergrad and probably the first few years of grad school (I have a BS in physics, and a PhD in a different field, so not 100% sure on the grad school work). That's 6 years of more or less full-time work, surrounded by excellent peers and mentors, where every week you read 2-4 chapters and do 10 problems per chapter. If you're motivated and talented, you'll breeze through the first few years of problems, but anecdotally, everybody hits a wall where the problems start to get really hard. I have no doubt you can replicate the undergrad education through self-study, and maybe even save money and time, but after that point, why not just go to grad school? You won't save much time doing it on your own, and you get mentorship, exposure to the research aspect (not exactly trivial to learn), credibility, and funding.

I'm pretty sure the number of high-quality researchers in theoretical physics, or any major field, who are totally self-taught is really quite small. This website feels like it's in part to dissuade amateurs from sending their "awesome result" to professionals, which the author mentions in the intro.

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#16

Post by pvg »

Retric wrote: post #12
pvg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stuff linked on the page is stuff you'll learn as an undergrad or before.

'Learn' can be fuzzy. IMO, most undergrads taking an undergrad DifEq course will have little understanding of what they are actually doing and just treat it as symbol manipulation. I have seen people encounter the same problem with calculus, matrices, or even simple algebra. And you can keep pushing, but at some point if you want to progress you need to revisit older topics and hopefully gain new understanding. It's…

I'm not sure I understand any of this. The person asking is trying to understand the difference (and required effort) between Khan Academy and what's linked on the page - basically 'Maths textbooks for curious undergraduates'. That's a good and sensible question and whatever you think the answer to it is, it surely isn't (as suggested by the person responding) 40 years of ferocious training in the Arctic with Doc Savage.

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#17

Post by paulpauper »

Stasis5001 wrote: post #14

For reference, generally people learn all this over four years of undergrad and probably the first few years of grad school (I have a BS in physics, and a PhD in a different field, so not 100% sure on the grad school work). That's 6 years of more or less full-time work, surrounded by excellent peers and mentors, where every week you read 2-4 chapters and do 10 problems per chapter. If you're motivated and talented, y…

I'm pretty sure the number of high-quality researchers in theoretical physics, or any major field, who are totally self-taught is really quite small.

I think it's zero

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#19

Post by paulpauper »

pvg wrote: post #9
kronos29296 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the basics - Khan academy is easy to understand and gives a good foundation. Don't even try to compare the advanced stuff. Just don't. Takes a lot of work and takes years. Even grad students run away from some of the stuff.

The stuff linked on the page is stuff you'll learn as an undergrad or before.

i'm pretty sure QFT is not undergrad

Re: How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist

#20

Post by cja23 »

projectramo wrote: post #15

Okay, how do you become a Good Actual Physicist?

Just in case you are not joking and for anyone not familiar with the terminology: Physics, and a lot of the hard sciences, are often broadly divided into "theoretical" and "experimental" halves. Experimental physicists design and run experiments, i.e. they "get their hands dirty", or at least the hands of their graduate students and post-doctorates. Their end goal is to find some actual fact about the actual universe, usually a quantified measurement. Theoretical physicists, on the other hand, create theories: mathematical and conceptual models that hopefully explain how or why the universe is the way it is. Ideally, the created theory not only explains the measurements that the experimental physicist has already observed, but also predicts the results of new measurements not yet observed.
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