Recent content by Victor Alencar

I do not get the conceptual difference between Riemann and Ricci tensors. It's obvious for me that Riemann have more information that Ricci, but what information? The Riemann tensor contains all the informations about your space. Riemann tensor appears when you compare the change of the sabe...

In the next semester I'll start to study english for GRE and TOEFL. I'm talking about both of them, but the general GRE is my problem because my english is not very good. My two best contacts did their PhD's in ICTP(Italy) and Dublin University but they have a lot of contacts over the world, I...

You can try the Fermi's book. This books gives a really good physical insight,it's not a complete book but offer a strong basis on fundamental thermodynamics. As always,you can try the Feynman books, did you? When i did Thermodynamics i studied Sears's and Sallinger's book, it is not so...

Carrol is a Wald just more didatical, Carrol says that in the firsts pages of the book.Carrol's book is very mathematical,I like it but is hard for a beginner. Landau is the best book for a first introduction in fields.

I'm 3rd year undergraduate student at Brazil and I wish to apply for some USA universities,but I'm scared with GRE. I have good and knowed physicists for rec. letters, experience with research and good grades,what are my chances? I'm thinking in 4 uni : Stony Brook,Chicago,Cornell and Penn. Here...

δS = 0 "S" stands by action( S=∫dtL) ,this is the Least Action Principle. All the physics lies in this equation. Equations of motion,symmetries and conservations can be extracted from that. "The equations of analitycal mechanics have a meaning that goes beyond the Newtonian mechanics"-A...