Recent content by theturbanator

You're absolutely correct; applying that transformation to all results (e.g., commutation relations, structure constants, etc.) reconciles the two differing conventions. I guess I was just trying to see if there was any way I could be a bit lazier when reading through a textbook on the material...

Thanks, naele, for your reply! I'll have to check out the Sternberg book, but I have gotten the Cornwell books from the library, and I'll have to agree with you -- his notation and type-setting is not the easiest on the eyes. He also, unfortunately, uses the exp[tX] convention. Maybe that's just...

Hi everyone, I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of more-mathematically-rigorous textbooks on Lie groups and Lie algebras for (high-energy) physicists than, say, Howard Georgi's book. I have been eying books such as "Symmetries, Lie Algebras And Representations: A Graduate...

And to Hurkyl: I don't know how much it helps, but we are only dealing with a central force here (the "particles" are actually planets both moving along Keplerian orbits), so the particles won't be doing anything crazy in terms of their higher derivatives

How about Hermite Interpolation, which, according to Wikipedia, "allows us to consider given derivatives at data points, as well as the data points themselves. The interpolation will give a polynomial that has a degree less than or equal to the number of both data points and their derivatives...

There are two concerns I have about that, though: first, I thought that in order to fit a nth order polynomial, you need n-1 points? second, polynomial interpolation of such a high order gives horrible artifacts; is there some way to keep order of the polynomial (in terms of the time variable)...

Hi everyone, I have a question about interpolation methods. I am given two particles and I know their positions, velocities, accelerations, and jerks (time derivative of acceleration) at some initial and final time-values (t0 and t1, respectively). I want to find the minimum distance...