If you like this, you will also like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-World-Physics-Everyone/dp/0674...
Einstein for Everyone
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#12I'd encourage everyone to read Einstein's book on relativity: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/Albert%20Einstein/Albert%2...
His writing style is beautifully simple and the content is therefore easy for anyone to read and understand.
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#13While this looks like a very fascinating book/course, does anyone have a recommendation for learning general relativity rapidly in a way that abuses mathematical knowledge? I want to brush up on tensor math and variational calculus and use it as a motivating core topic. I'm looking for the tersest complete guide from Newtonian physics to GR. Single author would be best, but I imagine it's not possible.
Reddit's r/AskScience recommended MTW's Gravitation[1], Wald's General Relativity[2], and, to begin, Sean Carroll's GR lecture notes[3].
Shameless affiliate links:
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716703440/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#14I thought I was viewing a PDF at first, the style is so neat. Does anyone know if it was converted from LaTeX to HTML?
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#15John Norton (the author) is an amazing historian and philosopher of science. People might be interested in some of the other "goodies" on his website -- http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/ -- and perhaps some of his papers as well.
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#16From the "Completeness of Quantum Theory" chapter (on one theory of the determinability of quantum systems): "If an atom has a probability of one half of radioactive decay over an hour, then all that really means is that its wave function describes an ensemble of many different atomic systems, half of which decay in an hour. Whether one particular atom in the ensemble will decay in one hour is definitely determinable…
I was quite confused by this statement, because it just looks wrong. Upon consulting the text you are citing, I figured out why: This is the author's summary of Einstein's position on the determinability of quantum systems, and Einstein was wrong, famously wrong. This statement is about how Einstein thought the world worked, not about how the world actually works. This statement you quote has often been called by the…
Technically, the only thing that is known not to exist is local hidden variables. There are non-local hidden variable theories which are consistent with all known experiments. Unfortunately, they are also not distinguishable by experiment from more mainstream interpretations of QM.
Here is an example of a non-local hidden variable theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#17I thought I was viewing a PDF at first, the style is so neat. Does anyone know if it was converted from LaTeX to HTML?
According to a meta tag, it was generated by Amaya-- http://www.w3.org/Amaya
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#18While this looks like a very fascinating book/course, does anyone have a recommendation for learning general relativity rapidly in a way that abuses mathematical knowledge? I want to brush up on tensor math and variational calculus and use it as a motivating core topic. I'm looking for the tersest complete guide from Newtonian physics to GR. Single author would be best, but I imagine it's not possible.
Reddit's r/AskScience recommended MTW's Gravitation[1], Wald's General Relativity[2], and, to begin, Sean Carroll's GR lecture notes[3]. Shameless affiliate links: [1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716703440/ref=as_li_qf_sp_... [2] http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=sdbo07-20&o=1&p=8&l... [3] http://preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/
I second these recs: all three are fantastic sources. MTW is very imposing (the damn thing must weigh twenty pounds), but don't be threatened, it is a crystal clear exposition that you really should not miss.
I'm not quite sure, though, if tel was asking for full mathematical developments of the theory (in which case the combo of MTW and Wald are, IMO, indisputable must haves), or something that just gets to the point quickly, assuming that you don't need help on the math.
In any case, anyone and everyone should also read Penrose's Road To Reality (my own shameless affiliate link: http://amzn.com/0679776311?tag=gubbins-20) for a very different take on...well, pretty much everything. The book is a complete failure at its stated goal of making mathematical physics accessible for a lay audience (I suspect when you're as smart as Penrose it's hard to figure out what an average Joe is capable of grokking...), but as a casual and wildly different sweep through a lot of interesting topics for someone that already knows math, it's fantastic.
Re: Einstein for Everyone
#19I thought I was viewing a PDF at first, the style is so neat. Does anyone know if it was converted from LaTeX to HTML?
Yeah, I was fooled too for a couple of hours. It's very strange to translate pages so literally to the web.