Wanting to Learn Lie Algebras

thrillhouse86

Hey All,

I want to start learning about Lie Algebras and I was wondering if anyone can recommend any good textbooks. I am an engineer, so I don't really care for a pure maths 'prove this' 'prove that' approach.

Also - does anyone have any two cents on 'Manifolds, Tensor Analysis, And Applications, R. Abraham, Jerrold E. Marsden, T. Ratiu' ?

Regards,
Thrillhouse

snipez90

All right so basically you want to understand a heavily mathematical discipline without really trying to understand it.

If you even bothered to search google books for the book, which by the way is written by three mathematicians, you would notice that the first two chapters make up the backbone in an intro or intermediate analysis course. I wouldn't expect the proofs to just die down in the rest of the book.

thrillhouse86

Hey listen smart arse - firstly thanks for not answering my question, but just insulting me. Secondly I never said I didn't want to deal with maths - I said I didn't want to have to deal with pure maths. You should know that the level of mathematical rigour required by physicists and engineers is less than that required by mathematicians. The classical examples being Quantum Mechanics, where you can understand a lot of the material without relying on a detailed knowledge of functional analysis, or control theory where you can implement solutions without a detailed knowledge of optimisation theory.

Secondly all I wanted to know whether anyone here in a PHYSICS forum, could vouch for that Marsden et. al. book - Is a good book. I have checked it out on google books and noticed that it is very mathematical, and therefore very time consuming to go through, which is why I wanted to get peoples opinions.